STUDIES  IN 

BPANISH-AMERICAN 

LITERATURE 

BY 
ISAAC  GOLDBERG,  Ph.D. 

WITH  AN  INTRODUCTION  BY 
PROF.  J.  D.  M.  rORD 

Smith  Professor  of  Freorh  •nil  Spanish  Languages 
in  Harvard  UniTrrsitf 


NEW  YORK 

BRENTANO'S 

PUBLISHERS 


Copyright,  1920.  by 
BRENTANO'S 


All  rights  reserved 


TO 
MY  PARENTS 


4^.^480 


P6 


INTRODUCTION 

It  is  only  tilt'  other  day  that  cultured  men  in  the  Spanish 
motherland  began  to  manifest  any  real  interest  in  the  litera- 
ture ol  tlieir  one-time  eolonies  in  the  Western  World. 
Hardly  at  all  before  Juan  Valera,  the  charming  novelist 
and  discerning  critic,  wrote  his  gossipy  American  Letters, 
(1888-1890)  did  well  trained  men  and  much  less,  of 
course,  the  ordinary  reader  in  the  Iberian  peninsula  re- 
alize the  ambitious  activity  of  the  many  writers  of  the  19th 
century-,  scattered  throughout  the  countries  lying  between 
the  southern  bounds  of  the  United  States  and  Tierra  del 
Fuego;  and  not  until  Menendez  y  Pelayo  prepared  for  the 
Spanish  Academy  his  Anthology  of  Spanish- American 
Poets  (1893-95)  was  there  any  considerable  knowledge  in 
Spain  of  the  great  output  of  Spanish  verse  in  the  New 
World  from  the  period  of  settlement  down  to  our  own 
times. 

Genial  spirit  though  he  was,  Valera  was  unable  to  avoid 

a  certain  display  of  that  condescending  tolerance  of  the 

European  critic  for  the  products  of  the  colonial  mind  which 

we  in  the  United  States  have  been  so  accustomed  to  find  in 

the  attitude  of  the  British  critics  and  essayists  toward  our 

own  belles  lettres.     Still,  Valera  and  Menendez  y  Pelayo 

did  prompt  their  Spanish  compatriots  to  look  with  some 

degree   of   attention    at   the    range    of    Spanish- American 

authorship,  and  then  came  the  Modernist  movement,  which, 

emanating  from  the  once  ignored  field  of  colonial  letters, 

vil 


viU  INTRODUCTION 

made  its  way  into  the  Old  World  Capital,  Madrid,  and 
showed  that  the  American  children  had  something  of  value 
and  of  their  own  contrivance  to  bring  back  to  the  Iberian 
mother. 

What  the  Modernist  Movement  means — of  course  it  has 
nothing  to  do  with  the  similarly  named  theological  flurry 
of  a  little  while  ago — Dr.  Goldberg  aims  to  make  clear  in 
the  pages  of  this  book,  and,  doing  this,  he  is  also  playing 
his  useful  part  in  the  spreading  of  the  evangel  of  intel- 
lectual Pan-Americanism.  For  w^e,  the  northern  brothers 
of  the  Spanish  Americans,  have  remained  even  more  ob- 
livious to  the  ideals  and  merits  of  Spanish-American  liter- 
ary culture  than  the  Spaniards  were  until  lately,  and  it  is 
high  time  that  we  rouse  ourselves  to  a  sense  of  our  back- 
wardness in  the  case.  When  we  do  so  and  bestir  ourselves 
to  know  properly  the  tendencies  and  achievements  of  Span- 
ish-American writers — nor  should  we  forget  the  Portu- 
guese-American writers  of  Brazil  in  this  connection — we 
shall  perforce  begin  to  conceive  a  high  regard  for  their 
zeal,  their  motives,  and  their  conscious  artistry.  Racial 
antipathy,  if  it  exist  at  all,  or,  at  least,  racial  indifference 
will  certainly  yield  to  some  better  feeling,  when  the  think- 
ing people  of  one  racial  origin  are  led  to  an  adequate  com- 
prehension and  a  favorable  estimate  of  the  intellectual  per- 
formances of  a  people  whose  provenience  is  quite  other 
than  their  own.  A  sermon  might  well  be  preached  on  this 
subject,  but  instead  of  a  sermon  a  book  is  now  presented 
in  the  hope  tliat  it  will  help  to  break  down  barriers  for  the 
maintenance  of  which  there  is  no  just  excuse  of  a  racial, 
political,  commercial,  cultural  or  other  nature. 

J.  D.  M.  Ford. 


FOREWORD 

The  purpose  of  the  present  volume  is  to  introduce  to  Eng- 
ish  readers  a  continental  culture  that  they  have  too  long 
leglected.  Not  tliat  we  have  been  alone  in  our  neglect; 
Spain  itself,  [\\c  mother  nation  of  Spanish  America's  grow- 
ng  republics,  has  until  very  recently  ignored  the  letters  of 
ts  numerous  offspring. 

Owing  to  the  meager  acquaintance  that  our  reading  pub- 
ic has  with  Spanish-American  literature,  a  book  of  purely 
Titical  essays  is  at  this  time  inadvisable;  I  have,  there- 
ore,  in  the  following  chapters,  freely  mingled  excerpts, 
'xposition  and  a  modicum  of  criticism,  in  the  hope  of  thus 
providing  an  incentive  for  further  delving  into  the  authors 
ind  the  books  commented  upon.  Whatever  criticism  I 
lave  written  has  been  determined  by  a  flexible  attitude, — 
I  have  sought  to  suggest  rather  than  to  define. 

Not  entirely  without  reason,  although  in  occasionally 
exaggerated  fashion,  Spanish  Americans  have  frequently 
expressed  suspicion  of,  and  hostility  to,  the  United  States. 
Yet  it  is  from  a  North  American,  Dr.  Alfred  Coester,  that 
he  first  literary  history  of  Spanish  America  has  come 
[New  York,  1916),  and  that  valuable  volume  I  recommend 
nost  cordially  to  any  one  desirous  of  securing  an  adequate 
listorical  background  for  studies  in  Spanish-American 
etters. 

In  later  books  I  plan  to  present  not  only  other  Spanish- 


X  FOREWORD 

American  writers  of  distinction  (and  there  is  a  host  that 
might  with  equal  profit  have  been  treated  in  the  present 
book),  but  also  Brazilian  autliors  of  note, — such  men  as 
Machado  de  Assis,  Olavo  Bilac,  Coelho  Netto,  Jose 
Verissimo, — to  name  but  four  out  of  a  multitude.  The 
spirits  referred  to  are  of  value  not  only  to  a  study  of  com- 
parative literature,  but  in  themselves. 

For  the  chief  impulse  in  assembling  these  studies  I  am 
indebted  to  Prof.  J.  D.  M.  Ford  of  Harvard  University,  a 
pioneer  scholar  of  singularly  communicative  inspiration. 
I  alone,  however,  am  responsible  for  my  opinions.  I 
am  glad  to  record  also  my  thanks  to  Mr.  Burton  Kline, 
the  short-story  writer  and  novelist,  who  as  magazine  editor 
of  the  Boston  Evening  Transcript  held  his  columns  always 
open  to  articles  upon  Spanish  and  Portuguese  American 
letters.  And  I  am  especially  thankful  to  Miss  Alice  Stone 
Blackwell,  the  well  known  editor  and  suffragist,  for  nu- 
merous versions  of  tlie  work  of  Spanish-American  poets. 
Unless  otherwise  indicated,  all  verse  translations  are  from 
her  pen. 

In  a  field  so  relatively  new  to  this  country,  and  in  which 
the  difficulties  of  intercommunication  are  great,  (even  in 
Spanish  America),  errors  are  more  than  likely  to  appear. 
The  author  may  be  addressed  in  care  of  the  publishers 
with  reference  to  suggestions  that  may  be  incorporated 
into  a  later  edition. 

Isaac  Goldberg. 

Roxbury,  Mass.,  1919. 


STUDIES  IN 
SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

CHAPTER  I 
THE  "MODERNISTA'*  RENOVATION 

The  study  of  that  phase  of  recent  Spanish-American  let- 
ters which  has  been  rather  loosely  and  inexpressively,  if 
popularly,  termed  '"Modernism"  forms  one  of  the  most  in- 
teresting adventures  in  compara'tive  literature.  For  in  its 
broader  implications  it  is  not  a  phenomenon  restricted  to 
Castilian  and  Ibero-American  writers  of  the  late  nineteenth 
and  early  twentieth  centur)%  but  rather  an  aspect  of  a  spirit 
tliat  inundated  the  world  of  western  thought  during  that 
era.  The  English  language  contributed  such  influences  as 
\^1ijtman,  Rossetti,  Swinburne,  Stevenson,  Wilde,  Kipling; 
in  Germany,  Sudermann  and  Hauptmann  dominated  the 
stage,  while  Nietzsche  launched  forth  to  subjugate  foreign 
thought  under  the  yoke  of  his  super-philosophy,  which  was, 
even  more,  poetry  and  vaticination;  in  Russia,  Garshin, 
Korolenko,  Chekhov  and  Gorki  came  to  the  fore;  Isben  and 
Bjoemsen  spoke  in  different  voices  for  Scandinavia;  from 
Italy  sounded  the  song  of  d'Annunzio;  above  all,  from 
France,  through  which  the  Spanish-Americans  absorbed  so 
much  of  tlie  foreign  influence,  echoed  the  labors  of  the 
Parnassians  and  the  Symbolist-Decadents.  And  into  the 
subsequent  productions  of  the  "modernists,"  both  the  mere 


2    /••fttlJp.^FS'iV  SPAN;^SPyV]\lERICAN  LITERATURE 

imitators  and  the  genuine  spirits  striving  for  self-expres- 
sion, filtered  something  from  all  the  schools  and  movements 
of  the  various  nations.  It  is  an  age  of  spiritual  unrest;  on 
all  sides  the  word  "free"  flings  its  challenge  to  the  breeze. 
Free  verse,  free  love,  free  music,  free  woman;  there  is  a 
riot  of  emancipation  that  crystallizes  into  the  one  great 
freedom, — a  free  self.  The  quest  for  that  liberty  lies  over 
treacherous  paths  and  in  its  name  are  committed  many 
crimes,  literary  as  well  as  political.  This,  however,  does 
not  invalidate  the  impulse  itself;  man  ever}'where  seeks  to 
release  his  mind  as  well  as  his  body;  the  true  deliverance 
is  discovered  to  be  spiritual  as  well  as  material.  The  spirit 
of  novelty  and  renovation  in  the  air  is  but  an  evidence  of 
the  search  for  self. 

"Modernism,"  as  applied  to  Spanish-American  letters 
(and  later  to  the  same  impulse  making  its  way  into  Penin- 
sular literature  in  the  year  of  Spain's  defeat  by  the  United 
■ — J  States)  wasjToti  tlien,  a  school.  Perhaps  the  word  move- 
ment is  likewise  inadequate  to  describe  the  tidal  wave  of 
reform  and  innovation  that  rose  in  the  last  quarter  of  the 
nineteenth  century  and,  before  it  had  spent  its  force,  washed 
away  the  old  rhetoric,  the  old  prose,  the  old  verse,  and  car- 
ried a  fresher  outlook,  a  more  universal  culture,  a  fuller, 
more  sensitive  means  of  expression  to  the  former  colonies 
of  Spain.  Modernism  was  not  a  school  for  the  simple  rea- 
son that  its  divers  tendencies  were  too  various  to  admit  of 
unified  grouping.  It  was  decidedly  eclectic  in  character 
and  from  the  most  antagonistic  principles  managed  to  se- 
lect, witli  more  or  less  confidence,  those  elements  best 
suited  to  its  purpose, — a  purpose  at  first  somewhat  spon-ti 
taneous,  uncritical,  hesitant,  but  gradually  acquiring  self 


THE  "MODERNISTA"  RENOVATION  3 

rcliaiu-c,  direction,  vil)raliiig  consciousness.  The  word 
Miovcinenl  is  for  similar  reasons  not  entirely  satisfactory. 
It  does  not  convey  tlie  ilyiuunic  conception  at  llie  bottom 
of  modernism,  which,  more  exactly  si)eaking,  is  the  syn- ^ 
thesis  of  several  movements.  In  the  latter  sense  modcrn- 
i>m,  far  from  having  run  its  course,  has  entered  upon  a  con- 
tiiuMiIal  |)hase  which  promises  to  bear  fruitful  and  signifi- 
(  int  results.  For  the  purposes  of  the  present  study, 
however,  it  will  be  advantageous  to  use  the  term  modernism  , 
to  mean  that  wave  of  renovation  and  innovation  to  which/ 
we  have  already  referred ;  we  must  not  forget,  nevertheless, 
that  human  thought  possesses  a  certain  continuity  which 
critical  labels  tend  to  conceal;  the  various  phases  of  the 
modernistic  impulse  are  natural  outgrowtlis  of  one  an- 
other; they  are  all  petals  of  the  same  flower,  with  a  stem 
tliat  sinks  deep  into  the  fecund  soil  of  modernity. 


THE    FRENCH    BACKGROUND 

For  a  more  than  superficial  understanding  of  this  im- 
portant epoch  it  is  necessary  to  glance  at  the  course  of 
French  letters  during  the  last  half  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury. The  study  of  literature  by  periods,  movements  and 
nations  is,  after  all,  an  arbitrary  method, — necessarily  so, 
since  man  must  classify  if  he  is  to  master  in  any  degree 
the  achievements  of  his  predecessors  and  his  contempo- 
raries; yet  none  the  less  arbitrary,  and  often  leading 
students  and  masters  alike  astray.  This  is  particularly 
true  in  the  study  of  literary  influences,  where  too  often  one 
man  is  represented  as  aff^ecting  another,  when  in  reality 


4        STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE  j 

they  are  both  being  acted  upon  by  the  same,  or  similar, 
non-literary  influences.  "A  great  many  sins,"  says  one  of 
the  most  penetrating  and  independent  of  our  younger  crit- 
ics, "have  been  committed  by  the  scholarly  search  for 
influences.  A  saner  and  more  philosophic  view  of  the  his- 
tory of  literature  regards  the  appearance  of  new  sources 
of  inspiration  and  new  forms  of  expressions  as  outgrowths 
of  those  larger  spiritual  forces  that  are  wont  to  affect  at 
the  same  time  or  almost  at  the  same  time  groups  of  people 
that  have  reached  a  like  stage  of  development.  The  mod- 
ern emergence  of  the  free  personality  from  the  merely 
political  individual — the  voter  who  in  his  day  succeeded 
the  tribesman  and  the  slave — accounts  for  the  change  in 
the  passions  and  the  forms  of  poetry  in  Goethe  and  in 
Shelley,  in  Whitman  and  Henley,  in  Richard  Dehmel 
and  in  Henri  de  Regnier."  ^  It  is  a  platitude  that  liter- 
ature, in  common  with  all  art,  has  its  roots  in  life,  yet 
how  often  we  forget,  or  even  ignore,  that  life  which  indi- 
rectly creates  it.  A  more  thorough  consideration  of  let- 
ters, then,  seeks  to  penetrate  beneath  merely  personal  in- 
fluences; it  seeks  to  understand  those  economic  and 
social  forces  that  underlie  artistic  manifestations;  it  seeks 
the  environment  behind  the  man  and  the  age  behind  the  j 
environment,  all  the  time  remembering  (what  many  sci- 
entific critics  forget)  that  no  age,  however  homogeneous 
it  appears  in  the  light  of  history,  is  a  simple  attitude,  and 
that  no  man,  however  unified  his  life  may  outwardly  seem, 
is  an  embodiment  of  calm  logic  unruffled  by  inner  conflict. 
In  a  larger  sense,  literary  history  is  a  series  of  actions 
and  reactions.     That  is  why  it  is  just  as  true  to  say  that<j 

1  Ludwig  Lewisolm.     The  Poets  of  Modern  France.     New  York,  1918. 


THE  "MODERNISTA"  RENOVATION  5 

all  thinf:;s  under  the  sun  are  now,  or  that  lUTthing  Is;  it  all 
dt'jKMuls  upon  the  point  of  view.  The  names  we  give  to  the 
nrurrent  ebb  and  How  suit  our  purpose  with  varying  de- 
cree o['  utility,  but  all  are  aliki'  harmful  if  they  obscure 
the  essential  fluidity  of  human  ihoughl.  Classieism  did 
not  die  with  llie  age  to  whieh  that  label  is  usually  applied; 
indeed,  it  never  died.  Romanticism,  likewise,  is  more  than 
an  epoch  in  the  history  of  letters;  it  is  a  human  attitude. 
Itider  various  titles  we  have  designated  literary  periods 
wliieh  show  as  their  distinctive  traits  the  one  or  the  other 
sjiirit,  but  no  age  has  lacked  examples  of  both  views  of 
life  and  art.  Later  artistic  histor)%  indeed,  reflecting  the 
growing  complexity  of  modem  life,  finds  the  task  of 
labelling, — once  so  simple  and  matter-of-fact, — an  in- 
creasingly diflicult  aff'air.  This  is  but  one  of  the  conse- 
quences brought  on  by  the  resurgence  of  self  in  creative 
endeavor,  by  a  more  personal  note  (even  in  so-called  im- 
personal art),  by  a  life  so  rich  in  stimulus  as  to  open  up 
new  worlds  within  as  well  as  without. 

If,  then,  I  speak  of  literary  influenice,  and  make  use  of 
certain  symbols  of  criticism  it  is  with  a  strong  feeling  that 
the  influence,  though  literary  in  manifestation,  rests  upon 
a  firm  foundation  of  that  group-life  out  of  which  the  crea- 
tive artist  must  rise,  yet  from  which  he  may  never  com- 
pletely detach  or  isolate  himself. 

The  main  currents  of  French  poetry  of  the  second  half 
of  the  nineteenth  century  have  been  variously  grouped; 
common  critical  opinion  recognizes  as  distinct  manifesta- 
tions the  Parnassians  "  and  the  Symbolist-Decadents. 

^  So  named  from  the  title  of  the  first  anthology  of  poems  by  the  group — 
Pamasse  Contemporain  (1866),  which  had  been  the  name  of  a  little  review 
published  by  Catulle  Mendes  and  Xavier  de  Ricard. 


6        STUDIES  LN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

Like  all  new  schools,  the  Parnassian  was  a  reaction,  fi- 
nally growing  to  the  proportions  of  an  affirmation.  Ro- 
manticism, by  1850,  had  run  its  cour-^  and  the  times  were 
ripe  for  change.  The  scientific  "'  ''  *he  age,  as  well 
as  the  oppressive  character  of  the  .  Napoleon  III, 

produced  a  tendency  in  favor  of  a  lore  ca^sic  interpreta- 
tion of  art, — an  interpretation  that  ^'avored  sobriety  of  con- 
ception, refuge  in  the  ivory  tower  of  lofty  seclusion,  an 
objective  attitude  toward  life.  It  was  not  so  much  a  pre- 
conceived program  as  a  common  refutation  that  brought  to- 
gether such  varying  spirits  as  the  sombre,  Olympic,  Leconte 
de  Lisle  and  the  sympathetic,  tender,  charming  Frangois 
Coppee. 

The  contribution  of  the  Parnassians  to  French  poetry 
is  well  known;  in  opposition  to  the  intensely  personal  touch 
of  the  Romanticists  (itself  a  reaction  against  the  imper- 
sonality of  the  classic  school),  they  reintroduced  the  im- 
personal attitude,  seeking  objective  reality  and  embodying 
it  in  a  form  of  marmoreal  beauty.  The  Symbolists,  on  the 
other  hand,  with  whom  the  Decadents  are  frequently 
grouped,  in  turn  rebelled  against  realism  and  the  im- 
personality, the  sculptural  isolation  of  the  Parnassians. 
They  beheld  the  necessity  of  a  radical  change  in  both  the 
form  and  substance  of  French  poetry,  and  gatliering  a 
group  of  writers  who  were  well-defined  personalities  rather 
than  slaves  to  a  formula,  they  initiated  an  era  of  expan- 
sion and  experiment  whose  effects  have  extended  into  our 
own  day.  For  inspiration  they  turned  to  such  a  relatively 
"old"  poet  as  Charles  Baudelaire,  as  well  as  to  the  vibrat- 
ing lyricist  Paul  Verlaine  and  the  tremulous,  vague,  enig- 
matic Stephane  Mallarme. 


1 


THE  -MODEKNISTA"  RENOVATION  7 

Like  tlu*  Panuissians,  llic  Syniholists  won*  mon*  or  loss  a 
reflection  of  the  ilominant  attiUitlc  ol  llic  social  environ- 
ment. The  day  of  self-expression  was  being  definitely 
ushereil  in;  tlie  marble  Galatea  of  Pamassianism  was  ren- 
dered j^railually  transparent,  revealing  the  pulsing  heart 
within,  the  complex  soul;  man  was  a  universe  in  himself, 
aquiver  widi  a  being  new-bom,  seeking  for  self-revelation 
means  as  subtle  anil  suggestive  as  possible.  The  Symbol- 
ists turned  as  naturally  to  music, — the  most  subtly  suggest- 
ive of  tlie  arts,  as  some  composers  of  the  day  turned  to  the 
delicate  nuances  of  symbolistic  poetry  for  inspiration. 
More  than  one  writer  has  commented  upon  the  ill-chosen 
name  of  that  group;  the  word  symbolic  suggests  too  much 
to  suggest  anything.  The  purpose  of  the  Symbolists,  how- 
over,  was  clear.  They  sought  to  sound  tlie  well  of  human 
personality,  and  to  accomplish  this  aim  by  all  the  artifices 
of  suggestion  they  could  master.  Where  the  Parnassians 
chiselled  for  tlie  eye,  they  would  chant  for  the  ear.  Like 
the  "Art  Poetique"  of  Verlaine,  who  for  long  did  not  re- 
alize the  revolution  he  had  brought  about  in  verse,  so  they 
proclaimed 

De  la  musique  avant  toute  chose 
Et  pour  ceia  prefere  Tlmpair 
Plus  vague  et  plus  soluble  dans  I'air 
Sans  rien  en  lui  qui  pese  ou  qui  pose. 

Rien  de  plus  cher  que  la  chanson  grise 
Ou  rindecis  au  Precis  se  joint 

Car  nous  voulons  la  Nuance  encor. 
Pas  la  Couleur,  rien  que  la  nuance! 

Prends  reloquence  et  tors-lui  son  cou! 


8        STUDIES  IN  SPAiNISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

These  few  excerpts  from  the  famous  poem  of  Verlaine 
give  in  themselves  a  fairly  adequate  summary'  of  the  Sym- 
bolist aim.  Musical  verse,  delicate  shades  rather  than 
definite  color,  absence  of  pompous  verbiage,  freedom  of 
structure,  independence  in  matters  of  rhyme, — which  in 
the  same  poem  is  characterized  as  a  penny  trinket  ("ce  bijou 
d'un  sou"), — the  communication  of  what  has  been  called 
"spiritual  reality"  (which  is  by  no  means  a  contradiction 
in  terms), — these  are  symptomatic  of  symbolist  matter  and 
manner.  Professor  Lewisohn,  in  the  compact  but  stimulat- 
ing, suggestive  book  I  have  already  quoted,  rightly  relates 
the  movement  as  a  whole  to  that  "modern  striving  toward 
self -hood"  which  appears  in  varied  form  in  all  the  leading 
literatures  of  the  world. 

That  striving  for  self-hood,  quite  naturally, — since  in  tlie 
words  of  the  great  German,  "man  errs  the  while  he  strives," 
— vented  itself,  as  it  still  does  today,  in  fashions  strange  and 
often  uncanny.  These  neo-idealists,  as  a  voluminous 
Spanish  critic  ^  has  termed  them,  early  betrayed  synaesthes- 
iac  tendencies.  Gautier  established  a  hierarchy  of  words, 
comparing  them  to  precious  stones.  Mallarme,  the  elusive 
interpreter  of  suggestion,  thought  that  the  name  Emil  pos- 
sessed a  green-lapislazuli  hue.  Arthur  Rimbaud's  well- 
known  neurotic  sonnet  of  the  vowels  sought  to  reduce  the 
vowel  system  to  a  palette,  assigning  to  A  the  color  black,  to 
B,  the  color  white;  to  I,  red;  to  U,  green;  to  0,  blue,  and 
carrying  this  fantastic  foolery  to  absurd  details.  Not  to 
be  outdone,  Rene  Ghil,  likewise  an  exemplification  of  the 
decadent  persuasion,  reported  a  different  classification. 
To  him  I  is  not  red,  but  blue;  0,  instead  of  blue,  is  red;  U, 

3  Julio  Cejador  y  Frauca.     Historia  de  La  Lengua  y  Literatura  Castellana, 
Comprendidos  los  Autores  Hispano-Americanos.     Tomo  X. 


THE  "MODERNISTA"  RENOVATION  9 

rather  than  green,  is  yellow;  the  same  author  carried  his 
color  impressions  into  the  domain  of  the  orchestra,  and  in 
his  Traite  dii  Vcrbc  discovers  thai  harps  arc  white,  violins 
blue,  tlie  brass  instruments  red,  the  flutes  yellow,  the  organ 
black.  ''I  have  found  crimson  words  to  paint  the  color  of 
the  rose,"  says  Theodore  de  Banville  in  one  of  his  poems. 
And  Baudelaire:  "Perfumes,  colors  and  sounds  are  inter- 
related. There  are  perfumes  fresh  as  the  flesh  of  babes, 
sweet  as  oboes  and  green  as  the  prairies."^ 

To  judge  artistic  schools  by  temporary  aberrations  of  \\^ 
their  representatives   is  to  confess  an  uncritical  attitude.^  .^Ic^ 
Criticism  itself,  which  is  an  art  rather  than  a  science  (de-    ^^^ 
spite  the  unbending  dogmatism  of  certain  Rhadamanthine 
personalities)  has  been  affected,  as  it  always  will  be,  by  the 
same  forces  that  have  operated  upon  the  creative  intellectual 
world.      It  tends  today  to  encourage  individuality  and  to 
become  itself  more  personal,  and  is  gradually  abandoning 
the  position  as  taskmaster,  labeller,  preceptor  and  mere 
castigator;  it  seeks  to  interpret,  rather  than  judge;  to  re- 
create, ratlier  than  embalm. 

That  modern  French  poetry  which  was  destined  to  reform 
the  poetry  of  Spain  through  the  modernist  spirit,  which  first 

*  The  question  of  colored  audition  and  related  phenomena  forms  one  of 
the  most  interesting  phases  of  modern  psychology.  There  is  nothing  new 
in  Rene  Ghil's  orchestral  coloring.  Goethe,  in  his  work  on  Color,  says  that 
Leonhard  Hoffmann  (1786)  assigned  colors  to  the  tones  of  various  instru- 
ments. The  violoncello,  for  example,  was  indigo-blue,  the  violin  was  ultra- 
marine blue,  the  oboe  was  rose,  the  clarinet  yellow,  the  horn  purple,  the 
trumpet  red,  the  flageolet  violet.  Later  Germans  have  toyed  with  similar 
concepts.  Recent  investigations  by  neuropaths  have  revealed  patients  wlio 
are  sensitive  to  the  temperature  and  taste  of  color,  as  well  as  to  the  color  of 
pain,  etc.  For  a  full  statement  of  Johann  Leonhard  Hoffmann's  color-sound 
comparisons,  see,  in  Goethe's  Zur  Farbenlehre,  the  part  devoted  to  Material- 
ien  zur  Geschichte  dcr  Farbenlehre,  under  Hoffmann's  name. 


10      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

affected  Spanish-America,  was  itself  (in  its  later  phase) 
influenced  by  Germanic  philosophy.  "Just  as  naturalism 
derives  from  the  English  spirt,"  avers  Cejador  y  Frauca,^ 
"so  symbolism  comes  from  the  Germanic  spirit."  Lewi- 
sohn,  enlarging  upon  the  same  idea,  states  that  "The 
French  Symbolists,  .  .  .  drew  their  doctrine  of  freedom  in 
life  and  art  partly,  at  least,  from  the  doctrine  of  the  post- 
Kantian  idealists.  The  creative  self  that  projects  the  vision 
of  die  universe  stands  above  it  and  need  not  be  bound  by 
the  shadows  it  has  itself  evoked.  The  inner  realities  be- 
came die  supreme  realities:  Maeterlinck  translated  the 
Fragments  of  Novalis  .  .  ."^  M.  Jean  de  Gourmont  is 
quoted  to  sustain  the  thesis  that  "Symbolism  was  not,  at 
first,  a  revolution,  but  an  evolution  called  forth  by  the  in- 
filtration of  new  philosophical  ideas.  The  theories  of 
Kant,  of  Schopenhauer,  of  Hegel  and  Hartmann  began  to 
spread  in  France:  the  poets  were  fairly  intoxicated  by 
them." 

Such,  in  bare  outline,  is  the  background  of  recent  French 
poetry  in  so  far  as  it  is  to  affect  the  more  immediate  subject 
of  our  study.  These  elements,  taking  root  in  a  soil  pre- 
pared for  them  by  politico-economic  history  (the  evidences 
of  which  are  so  remarkably  and  indissolubly  present  in 
such  a  large  body  of  Spanish- American  literature)  produce 
upon  modern  Castilian  verse  and  prose  an  effect  that  has 
now  been  all  the  more  exactly  analyzed  in  its  numerous  man- 
ifestations since  the  wave  of  "modernism"  has  receded  on 
both  Spanish  sides  of  the  Atlantic;  or  at  least,  has  accom- 
plished its  historic  mission.  Contemporary  Spanish-Amer- 
ican prose  and  verse  at  their  best,  are  remarkable  for  their 

B  Op.  cit.     Page  28. 
8  Op.  cit.    Page  8. 


THE  "MODERNISTA"  RENOVATION  11 

lucidity,  tluMr  ciiiclility,  their  adaptation  to  the  nuilliraiious 
hues  and  luimors  of  latlcrnlay  ihouglit.  The  Uiiigiiagc  can 
crackle  and  sphitter  beneath  the  fiery  pen  of  a  Blanco-Fom- 
liona;  in  the  hands  of  a  Dario  it  acquires  Gallic  luminosity; 
Santos  Chocano  achieves  with  it  new  sonorities  that  well 
match  his  volcanic,  hi-continental  utterances;  Jose  Enrique 
Rodo  makes  it  the  vehicle  of  pregnant  essays  thafat  times 
match  those  of  Macaulay  or  Emerson. 

The  French  inlluence,  however,  was  more  or  less  spor- 
adic; or,  if  sporadic  is  not  quite  the  right  term,  uneven  and 
dependent  upon  particular  circumstances.  Spanish  writers 
have  been  wont  to  chide  Spain's  former  colonies  for  their 
intellectual  dependence  upon  France — a  phenomenon  that 
is  likewise  to  be  observed  in  Portuguese  Brazil — and 
Hispano-American  writers  (often  with  an  exaggerated  and 
unphilosophic  hostility  toward  the  mother  country)  have 
gloried  in  that  same  bond  of  cultural  amity. 

"Modernism"  was,  then,  an  intellectual  as  well  as  an 
artistic  reaction,  and  signalled  the  definite  entrance  of 
Spanish  America  into  European  literary  currents;  from  the 
Parnassians  it  learned  to  seek  new  beauties  of  line  and 
form;  from  the  Symbolists  and  Decadents  it  received  the 
opposite  contribution  to  French  letters — a  sense  of  color 
and  nuance,  a  deeper  susceptibility  to  the  musical  possibil- 
ities of  words.  To  be  sure,  since  Spanish  Americans,  more 
ardent  tlian  their  trans- Atlantic  brethren,  are  born  reciting 
verses,  they  quickly  showed  themselves  prone  to  exaggera- 
tions quite  comparable  to  the  vocalic  chromomania  of 
Riinbaud  and  Ghil,  and  to  the  recondite,  esoteric  practises 
of  "better  known  Symbolists.  That  was  to  be  expected;  but 
it  is  a  wrong  attitude  (such  as  is  entertained  by  more  than 


12      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

one  Castilian  critic)  to  charge  these  aberrations  to  Mod- 
emism.  Modernism  merely  incited  them,  because  it  hap- 
pened  to  be  in  vogue;  bad  poetry  has  always  been  written; 
and  always  will  be,  and  I  suppose  there  will  always  be 
critics  who  will  blame  the  "new"  movement  rather  than  the 
poets  themselves,  forgetful  of  the  fact  that  mere  imitators 
will  ever  imitate,  and  that  original  spirits  will  break  through 
all  canons.  Schools  and  movements  do  not  produce  poets; 
the  reverse  is  more  near  the  truth.  Similarlv,  the  study  of 
schools  and  movements  is  a  useful  aid  to  the  appreciation 
of  the  poet's  work,  but  never  a  substitute  for  the  poetry  it- 
self, which,  if  it  be  genuine  art,  rises  above  strict  classifica- 
tion. 

Although  the  date  1888  (during  which  year  Ruben 
Dario's  volume  of  prose  and  poetry  called  Azul  appeared) 
has  been  taken  as  the  starting  point  of  the  Modernist  era, 
the  movement  had,  like  all  great  historical  events,  cast  its 
shadows  before  it.  Dario,  though  the  standard-bearer  of 
the  reform  (self-consciously  and  progressively  so)  was  not 
the  first  of  the  "modemistas."  He  had  been  preceded  by 
xManuel  Gutierrez  Najera  in  Mexico,  by  Jose  Marti  and 
Julian  del  Casal  in  Cuba,  perhaps  by  Jose  Asuncion  Silva 
m  Colombia,  and  was  ever  alive  to  the  new  notes  being 
sounded  by  such  personal  and  outstanding  figures  as  Diaz 
Miron  of  Mexico  and  Santos  Chocano  of  Peru. 

When  the  new  French  influence  first  appeared  (chiefly 
through  the  Symbolists  and  the  Decadents)  it  marked  what 
has  been  called  the  most  important  epoch  in  the  history  of 
Spanish-American  letters.  Speaking  in  terms  of  epochs 
rather  than  of  single  writers,  this  is  fairly  true.  Hence- 
forth Spanish-American  letters  are  destined  more  and  more 


THE  "MODERNISTA"  RENOVATION  13 

to  be  produced  by  men  with  a  l)rt>ad  outlook,  trained 
directly  or  indirectly  in  the  culture  of  contemporary 
Europe,  endowed  with  a  growing  selective  power  that  im- 
bibes from  foreign  influences  tliat  which  native  needs  may 
best  employ  and  in  turn  su[)plies  its  personal,  original  con- 
tribution to  the  literature  that  crosses  boundaries. 

The  begiiming  of  the  last  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury found  the  Spanish-American  writers  of  originality  in 
need  of  a  new  expressional  medium  and  eager  for  new  in- 
tellectual impulses.  While  these  were  received  chiefly 
from  France,  they  came,  too,  from  sources  as  wide  apart  as 
our  own  Poe  (whose  Raven  was  most  admirably  trans- 
lated by  Perez  Bonalde,  the  noted  Venezuelan  "poet  of 
Niagara,"  so  named  for  an  inspirational  outburst  that 
rivals  the  verses  of  the  Cuban  Heredia  to  the  same  handi- 
work of  Nature)  and  Heine,  rendered  into  Spanish  by  the 
same  poet.  The  transitional  period  reveals  characteristics 
that  are  familiarly  recurrent  in  literary  history, — a  pan- 
theistic mysticism,  a  new  return  to  mother  nature,  a  desire 
for  simplicity  coupled  with  an  intense  response  to  con- 
temporary life  and  a  note  of  query  addressed  to  the  enigma 
of  existence. 

To  Spanish-American  modernism  there  is  something 
more,  however;  the  age  is  complex  and  so  are  its  literary 
manifestations;  a  writer  like  Gutierrez  Najera,  coming  at 
an  early  stage  of  the  new  influences,  and  being,  in  reality, 
a  transitory  figure,  appears  simple  beside  the  multi-colored 
'poesy  of  a  Dario;  I  say  appears,  because  at  bottom  the 
Mexican  is  quite  as  intensely  human  as  the  Nicaraguanj 
moreover,  we  must  view  with  reserve  the  statement  as  to 
modernist  simplicity  when  we  recall  some  of  the  symbolistic 


14      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

extravagances  in  France,  Spain,  Spanish  America  and  the 
United  States.  Not  all  is  simple  that  is  symbolist;  very  re- 
cent developments  in  Hispano- American  poetry  (sporadic, 
though  significant)  reveal  the  fact  that  complexity  of  con- 
ception is  not  at  all  dead,  and  that  poets  of  modernist 
provenance,  like  the  modern  individualistic  spirits  they  are, 
reserve  the  right  to  confound  critical  pigeon-holing,  and  to 
climb  up  into  the  ivory  tower  of  the  Parnassians,  there  to 
write  Symbolist  verse  in  Modernist  language. 

The  Parnassians  exercised  a  powerful  influence  upon 
form  in  Spanish-American  poetry;  their  impassivity,  how- 
ever, (or,  at  least,  their  desire  to  convey  the  impression  of 
impersonality)  did  not,  on  the  whole,  appeal  to  an  ardent 
youth  panting  for  self-expression.  It  was  only  natural  that 
a  Gallic  school,  representing  a  group  of  highly  refined 
spirits  belonging  to  an  old  civilization,  should  undergo  im- 
portant change  in  the  virgin  soil  of  a  new  continent.  Par- 
nassian impersonality,  then,  was  an  exception  ratlier  than 
the  rule.  By  the  same  ^ken  the  Symbolist  reaction  ap- 
pealed more  to  the  nature  of  the  Spanish-Americans.' 

Verlaine,  above  all,  drew  to  himself  a  host  of  poets  who 
turned  to  him  not  because  he  was  French  but  because  his 

^  Cf.  Ugarte,  La  Joven  Literatura  Hispanoamericana,  Prefacio.  ''The 
'decadents,'  as  they  were  at  first  called  with  scorn,  and  later  with  admira- 
tion, determined  the  most  intense  literary  activity,  and  most  fertile  in  re- 
sults, that  South  America  has  ever  known.  Through  them  the  language 
acquired  a  force,  an  accent,  a  precision  and  fresliness  which  transformed 
it  completely;  through  them,  thought,  which  had  up  to  then  been  concealed 
beneath  the  commonplaces  of  rhetoric,  discovered  innumerable  paths  of 
unexplored  beauty;  through  them,  above  all.  was  inaugurated  the  era  of 
literary  individualism,  and  style  was  emancipated."  For  an  excellent  dis- 
/cussion  of  Ugarte's  anthology,  as  well  as  for  valuable  comment  upon  Spanish- 
1  American    letters    in    general,    see    Rodo's   article,   "Una    Nueva    Antologia 

Americana"  in  El  Mirador  de  Prospero. 
M 


THE  "MODERNISTA"  RENOVATION  15 

deep  humanity  spoke  to  tlu'ir  groping  souls.  1 1  is  religious 
leanings,  his  questioning  of  the  unknowable,  his  neurotic 
aflliitions,  his  weakin>  of  the  flesh, — these  rendered  him 
in  a  way  a  symbol  of  the  age.  To  say,  for  example,  that  a 
poet  like  Dario  merely  imitated  Verlaine,  is  empty  phras- 
ing; Verlaine  was  in  every  sense  a  kindred  spirit.  Unless 
we  are  ready  to  assent  to  the  manifest  absurdity  that  all 
jiriority  is  causality,  we  nuist  be  ready  to  see  that  bcliind 
both  the  French  decadent  poets  and  the  young  Hispano- 
Americans  was  an  age-spirit  that  brought  them  together;  as 
in  the  case  of  so  much  of  what  is  called  literary  influence, 
we  are  in  the  presence,  not  merely  of  cause  and  effect,  but 
in  great  degree,  of  earlier  and  later  effect  of  a  common 
cause.  It  is  significant  that  one  of  the  rare  spirits  treated 
in  Dario's  book  Los  Raws,  is  Ibsen.  The  age  was  growing 
cosmopolitan,  and  it  is  this  groping  cosmopolitanism,  this 
yearning  for  broader  horizons,  that  is  myopically  dismissed 
by  some  critics  as  a  mere  novelty-seeking  exoticism.  Ex- 
oticism, (in  its  prurient  sense)  there  was;  novelty-monger- 
ing  there  was;  underneath,  however,  lay  an  age-spirit  that 
vented  itself  in  music,  in  art,  in  science,  in  economics. 

We  have,  then,  in  Hispano- American  modernism  a  phase 
of  universal  revolt,  a  double  revolt,  which  is  in  reality  a 
single  one,  since  new  technical  procedure  is  but  a  concom- 
itant of  altered  vision.  The  self-conscious  personality  of 
the  new  youth  now  looked  to  the  conquest  of  spiritual  as 
•well  as  political  and  economic  independence;  more  ample 
expression  of  self  demanded  more  ample  means  of  ex- 
presssion.  The  phenomenon  is  not  French;  it  is  not  Span- 
ish; racial  or  cultural  inheritances  color  the  manifestation, 
but  do  not  determine  it.     The  modernist  influence  (using 


16      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

the  term  in  its  broader  sense,  yet  with  all  its  connotation  of 
new  technique  and  expansion  of  personality)  may  be  amply 
and  profitably  studied  even  in  the  Yiddish  poets  of  New 
York  City,  who,  partly  through  American  influences,  have 
absorbed  and  transformed  the  most  varied  manifestations  of 
modernity. 

n 

SOME    MODERNIST    PRECURSORS 

1.  Manuel  Gutierrez  Ndjera 
(1859-1895) 

Chief  among  the  precursors  of  modernism  who  have 
already  been  mentioned  was  the  noted  Mexican,  Manuel 
Gutierrez  Najera. 

The  average  educated  American  of  the  North,  who  has 
received  his  information  about  Mexico  largely  from  the 
columns  of  the  daily  press,  would  be  surprised,  perhaps, 
to  learn  that  the  republic  directly  to  the  south  of  us  is  an 
ancient  seat  of  culture.  As  much  surprised,  indeed,  as  the 
average  South  American,  who  has  received  his  information 
about  the  United  States  from  the  columns  of  his  daily  press, 
would  be  to  discover  that  in  our  country  something  more 
than  lynchings,  prize-fights,  railroad  wrecks  and  divorce 
trials  is  the  order  of  the  day.  Yet  Mexico's  literary  past 
is  distinguished  by  glories  little  appreciated  in  other  Span- 
ish-speaking countries — Spain  itself  included — not  to  speak 
of  the  United  States. 

Before  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century  Mexico  had 
a  "colegio"  for  the  natives,  at  which  were  taught  reading, 
writing,  Latin,  grammar,  rhetoric,  philosophy,  and  music. 


THE  "MODERNISTA"  RENOVATION  17 

In  1533,  thirty  yoars  after  Hernan  Cortes  arrived  at  Trii- 
ochtitlan,  the  University  of  Mexico  was  founded  hy  man- 
date of  Carlos  1.  Here,  also  about  1536-7,  appeared  the 
first  printing-press.  During  the  sixteenth  century,  in  fact, 
no  less  than  one  hundred  and  sixteen  books  were  published 
in  the  City  of  Mexico;  the  first  of  these — La  Escalera  de 
San  Juan  Climaco — was  printed  some  one  hundred  and 
three  years  before  The  Freeman  s  Oath,  publisheil  by  Har- 
vard College.  Naturally,  the  first  books  were  confined  in 
the  main  to  religion,  morals  and  works  in  native  dialects. 
At  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  centuiy  belles-lettres 
and  history  appeared  in  print. 

Two  of  the  greatest  names  in  Castilian  literature  belong 
by  nativity,  if  not  by  their  products,  to  Mexican  letters. 
The  noted  dramatist  Juan  Ruiz  de  Alarcon  and  the  world- 
famous  poetess  Sor  Juana  Ines  de  la  Cruz,  both  of  the  sev- 
enteenth century,  reveal  their  Mexican  origin  in  not  a  little 
of  tlieir  work.  Thus  Luis  G.  Urbina,  one  of  the  leading 
contemporary  poets  of  Mexico,  as  well  as  a  critic  of  en- 
gaging style  and  keen  perceptions,  reminds  us  in  his  La 
J  id  a  Liter  aria  de  Mexico  that  the  tender  melancholy  of 
Alarcon  is  distinctively  Mexican;  the  playwright  himself, 
writing  in  far-off  Spain,  felt  this  allegiance  to  the  land  of 
his  birth,  as  is  shown  by  his  frequent  reference  to  it.  In 
Sor  Juana  Ines  de  la  Cruz — once  upon  a  time  heralded,  in 
terms  that  would  bring  a  blush  of  inferiority  to  the  cheeks 
of  our  most  enterprising  press-agents,  as  "the  Tenth  Muse" 
— Urbina  discovered  the  first  symptoms  of  Mexican  folk- 
lore as  well  as  the  first  Mexican  feminist. 

Today,  after  almost  three  centuries,  Mexico  has  regained 
her  literary  pre-eminence.     That  same  melancholy  atmos- 


18      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

phere  which  Urbina  advances  as  one  of  the  characteristics 
of  his  nation's  art,  and  which  his  own  poetry  exemplifies  in 
so  charming  a  manner,  wafts  through  much  of  what  is  now 
being  written ;  yet  contemporary  poetry,  particularly  in  such 
original  spirits  as  Amado  Nervo  and  Enrique  Gonzalez 
Martinez,  achieves  something  more  than  intense  personality 
of  mood, — something  that  maintains  the  new  universality  of 
Mexican  poetry,  which  was  brought  with  flying  banners  into 
the  realms  of  pure  art  by  Manuel  Gutierrez  Najera. 

The  contribution  of  Mexico  to  the  renovation  of  modern 
Spanish  letters  has,  in  a  measure,  been  obscured  by  the 
very  universality  of  its  chief  poets,  even  as  has  been  ob- 
scured its  contribution  of  three  centuries  ago.  Not  only 
to  Gutierrez  Najera,  to  Amado  Nervo  and  to  Enrique  Gon- 
zalez Martinez  is  the  modernist  school  a  debtor;  the  bold 
eloquence  of  Salvador  Diaz  Miron  aff"ected  both  Dario  and 
the  powerful  poet  that  has,  in  the  minds  of  many,  taken 
his  place, — Santos  Chocano  of  Peru.  Nor  is  the  position 
of  the  latter  undisputed;  some  would  accord  the  pedestal 
to  Diaz  Miron. 

Manuel  Gutierrez  Najera,  by  most  reckoned  as  the  great- 
est of  Mexican  poets,  was  born  into  a  pious  middle-class 
family,  and  was  educated  chiefly  at  home,  having  been 
early  intended  for  the  church.  Parental  influence  seems 
to  have  been  strong  on  both  sides;  from  his  mother  he 
acquired  that  delicate  sensitivity  which  shines  through  all 
his  labors,  and  which,  if  but  a  single  phrase  were  available, 
would  aptly  characterize  his  varying  productions.  Not 
only  is  his  love  of  her  directly  evident  in  his  prose  and  his 
poetry,  but  it  appears  in  amplified  fashion  in  his  distinctly 


THE  "MODERNISTA"  RENOVATION  19 

feminine  outlook,  using  that  much  abused  word  in  its  finer 
connotations;  it  is  evidenced  by  a  piety  that  rarely  deserts 
him,  allliough  it  is  later  translated  into  terms  of  an  un- 
dogmatic  mysticism  not  infrequently  led  to  the  brink  of 
desfuiir;  to  her  is  due  his  Catliolic  poetry,  which  was  to  raise 
false  hopes  in  the  breasts  of  some  of  his  countrymen.  Born 
into  another  age,  Gutierrez  Najera  might  have  become  the 
standard-bearer  of  a  lyric  Catholicism;  he  had  come  too 
late  for  tliat,  and  with  the  awakening  of  his  personality 
turned  to  otlier  radically  different  paths. 

From  his  father  came,  perhaps,  that  desire  to  write 
which  the  son  manifested  at  a  very  early  age,  at  times  in 
disconcerting  fashion.  For  the  older  man  was  not  only  a 
lover  of  good  poetr}%  but  wrote  verse  himself  and  even  tried 
his  hand  at  dramatic  pieces,  which  he  later  submitted  to 
his  son  for  approval.  As  one  of  the  poet's  commentators 
suggests,  the  taste  of  the  child  may  have  been  influential 
in  keeping  the  dramas  from  attempting  success  upon  the 
stage.  Both  by  racial  surroundings  and  parental  influence, 
tlien,  Gutierrez  Najera  seemed  destined  to  become  a  poet; 
to  the  melancholy  thajjscharacteristic  of  the  Mexican  spirit 
was  added  the  piety  of  a  devoted  mother  and  the  frustrated 
literary^^LBibitions  of  the  sternej;_parent. 

Among  the  readings  that  shaped  his  in'ti'l  thoughts  were 
the  mystic  writers  Juan  de  Avila,  Su.v  Juan  de  la  Cruz,  the 
two  Luises,  Santa  Teresa  and  Malon  de^Chaide;  to  this 
orthodox  instruction  was  added  a  training  in  Latin;  both  ele- 
ments are  in  evidence  in  his  later  work.  Before  he  is  thir- 
teen we  discover  his  running  off  to  the  editor  of  a  Catholic 
paper,  requesting  that  wortliy  to  print  one  of  his  articles. 
Stranger  still,  the  article  is  accepted  and  printed  witli  no 


20      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

little  praise.  If,  however,  the  poet's  Latin  lore  helped  to 
ripen  his  mind  and  store  it  with  the  feeling  for  classic  form 
that  never  left  him,  it  did  not  furnish  him,  as  it  still  fur- 
nishes to  many,  a  series  of  symbols  by  which  his  erotic 
poetry  might  always  be  disguised  beneath  a  veil  of  mytho- 
logical allusion;  his  love  verses  often  contain  a  genuine, 
if  precocious,  passion  and  an  ardent  sincerity. 

Then  came  the  knowledge  of  the  French  language  which 
was  to  transform  the  poet.  "How,"  asks  Urbina,  "could 
Manuel,  without  having  attended  the  official  places  of  learn- 
ing, have  thus  early  learned  French?  The  reason  is  that 
ever  since  the  invasion  of  the  soldiers  of  Napoleon  III, 
Mexico  experienced,  in  the  upper  and  middle  classes,  the 
irresistible  influence  of  this  so  communicative  and  sug- 
gestive people.  When,  after  four  years  of  living  among 
us,  and  fighting  us,  the  time  came  for  the  foreign  troops 
to  return,  there  remained  in  the  country  many  Frenchmen 
vho  had  assimilated  our  ways,  and  among  these  were  some 
who  devoted  themselves  to  instruction  and  opened  schools." 
.  .  .  This,  among  other  things,  determined  the  propaganda 
I  of  tht  language  and  the  literature  of  the  invading  country. 
Gutierrez  Najera,  through  the  eff^ect  of  these  recent  studies, 
turned  his  back  upon  Hispanism;  he  became  Gallicized, 
but  so  innate  was  his  good  taste  that,  in  his  juvenile  works 
(done  at  sixteen  to  seventeen  years  of  age)  though  there  is  a 
preponderance  of  his  enthusiastic  predilections,  there  are 
still  traces  of  his  earlier  admirations;  even  in  the  years 
1876-77  he  is  found  imitating  Campoamor  and  Becquer. 
It  is  to  Becquer,  indeed,  that  some  contemporary  critics 
would  relate  the  deeper  spirit  of  the  poet's  complete  labors, 
so  that  strangely  enough,  the  same  singer  who  introduced  the 


THE  "MODERNISTA"  RENOVATION  21 

new  French  influences  into  Spanish-American  verse,  is 
compared  to  the  charming  lyricist  who  himself  was  called 
the  Spanish  Heine. 

Once  the  (iallic  seed  was  sown  it  grew  rapidly  to  matur- 
ity; it  seems  that  a  new  world  has  been  opened;  there  are 
changes  in  the  poet's  expression;  he  ventures  certain  free- 
doms of  construction;  he  reveals  his  new  readings  by  the 
nature  of  his  citations;  his  ideas  and  his  style  are  com- 
pletely transformed.  Through  the  new  influence  he  is 
aided  upon  his  path  to  the  acquisition  of  an  independent 
personality.  Not  only  is  this  true  of  his  poetry,  but  of  his 
prose,  in  which  he  is  no  less  the  innovator,  the  precursor 
of  Dario  and  the  modernistas.  Out  of  the  mingled  currents 
that  aff^ectcd  his  labors, — the  oratory  of  a  Castelar,  the 
bitter-sweet  philosophy  of_a_^ampoamor,  the  romantic 
extravagance  of  an  Echegaray,  the  tenderness  of  de 
Musset, — he  fashioned  himself  a  language  capable  of  ex- 
pressing the  finer  shades  of  his  feeling,  the  nuances  of  his 
dioughts.  His  most  famous  pseudonym — El  Duque  Job — 
seems  to  synthesize  in  two  words,  the  dominant  traits  of  his 
contradictory  personality.  A  duke  he  was,  with  his  lean- 
ings toward  elegance,  his  innate  aristocracy  of  feeling,  his 
glinting  humor  of  thought  and  phrase;  and  a  suff^erer  as 
■^ell,  not  with  the  patience  implied  in  the  biblical  name,  but 
with  all  the  torments  of  a  modem  soul  adrift  on  a  sea  of 
doubt. 

When  Gutierrez  Najera  came  upon  the  scene,  liberalism 
was  triumphing  in  Mexico;  added  to  that  liberalism,  the 
character  of  his  French  readings  was  not  of  the  sort  cal- 
culated to  deepen  in  him  the  Catholic  fervor  he  imbibed 
from  his  mother;  yet  at  bottom  the  poet  was  a  religious  soul. 


22      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

or  if  not  quite  that,  a  soul  in  need  of  rest,  of  faith,  of  resig- 
nation. When,  as  early  as  1877,  he  published  his  famous 
Para  Entonces,  voicing  his  wish  to  die  an  early  death — a 
frequent  wish  of  the  modernists,  and  one  too  frequently 
fulfilled,  as  in  the  case  of  Gutierrez  Najera  himself- — he 
was  but  eighteen  years  old.  Bearing  in  mind  his  orthodox 
training,  the  nascent  liberalism  of  the  age,  and  his  over- 
whelming introduction  to  the  new  current  of  French 
thought,  it  is  easy  to  imagine  that  these  youthful  verses 
are  by  no  means  the  ordinary  morbidity  of  the  juvenile  in- 
tellect suddenly  cast  upon  the  real  world,  but  are  symptom- 
atic of  the  beginning  of  that  conflict  within  him  which  never 
was  fully  resolved  into  the  resignation  of  the  calm,  philo- 
sophical outlook. 

His  first  articles  appeared  in  El  Federalista  under  the 
title  "Confidencias";  there  followed,  in  various  periodicals, 
such  as  the  Liceo  Mexicano,  the  Revista  Nacional,  and  El 
Partido  Liberal,  a  series  of  chroniques,  tales  and  poems, 
written  at  times  under  various  pseudonyms,  which  are  il- 
lustrative of  the  author's  readings  as  well  as  his  tastes: 
El  Daque  Job,  Junius,  El  Cura  de  Jalatlatco,  Puck,  Re- 
camier.  The  era  of  Mexican  periodical  activity  was  ap- 
proaching; much  of  modern  progress  is  heralded  by  the 
array  of  magazines  that  sprang  up  on  all  sides.  One  of 
the  most  important  of  these — the  Revista  Azul — was 
founded  only  a  year  before  the  poet's  death,  by  him  and 
Carlos  Diaz  Dufoo.  To  this  new  review  flocked  the  lead- 
ing intellects  of  the  day.  And  why  a  blue  review?  "Be- 
cause," explained  the  gracious  duke,  borrowing  a  leaf  from 
Hugo's  notebook,  "in  blue  there  is  sunlight;  because  in  the 
blue,  there  are  clouds;  and  because  in  the  blue,  hopes  fly 


THE  "MODERNISTA"  RENOVATION  23 

in  flocks.  Blue  is  not  iiuTely  a  color,  it  is  a  mystery." 
And  lest  it  he  thought  that  this  cerulean  outhurst  was  due 
solely  to  the  widespread  success  of  Dario's  Azul,  which 
had  been  printed  six  years  before,  it  is  instructive  to  re- 
member that  as  early  as  1880,  "the  thought  of  the  poet  ap- 
pears more  refined  still,  in  some  strophes  taken  from  Del 
Librito  Aziil.  Do  you  not  see  in  this  title  (tlu^  blue  book)  a 
predecessor  of  the  first  revolutionary  work  writtiMi  by 
Ruben  Dario,  Azul  .  .  .  published  years  later,  in  1888?"^ 
Gutierrez  Najera,  in  fact,  everywhere  shows  his  fondness 
for  color  names;  his  poem  De  Blanco  (1888)  is  an  orches- 
tration of  the  color  white  tliat  is  more  successful,  in  my  es- 
timation, than  Dario's  Symphony  in  Grey  Major:  ^ 

What  thing  than  the  lily  unstained  is  more  white? 
More  pure  than  the  mystic  wax  taper  so  bright? 

More  chaste  tlian  the  orange-flower,  tender  and  fair? 
Than  the  light  mist  more  virginal — holier  too 
Than  the  stone  where  the  eucharist  stands,  ever  new. 

In  tlie  Lord's  House  of  Prayer? 

By  the  flight  of  white  doves  all  the  air  now  is  cloven; 
A  white  robe,  from  strands  of  the  morning  mist  woven. 

Enwraps  in  the  distance  the  feudal  round  tower. 
The  trembling  acacia,  most  graceful  of  trees, 
Stands  up  in  the  orchard  and  waves  in  the  breeze 

Her  soft,  snowy  flower. 

See  you  not  on  the  mountain  the  white  of  the  snow? 
The  white  tower  stands  high  o'er  the  village  below; 

The  gentle  sheep  gambol  and  play,  passing  by. 
Swans  pure  and  unspotted  now  cover  the  lake; 

8  M.  H.  Urena.     Rodo  y  Ruben  Dario.     Havana,  1918.     Page  92. 
"  Both  poems  were  probably  suggested  by  Gautier's  Symphonic  en  Blanc 
Majeur. 


24      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

The  straight  lily  sways  as  the  breezes  awake; 
The  volcano's  huge  vase  is  uplifted  on  high. 

Let  us  enter  the  church:  shines  the  eucharist  there; 
And  of  snow  seems  to  be  the  old  pastor's  white  hair; 

In  an  alb  of  fine  linen  his  frail  form  is  clad. 
A  hundred  fair  maidens  there  sit  robed  in  white; 
They  offer  bouquets  of  spring  flowers,  fresh  and  bright, 

The  blossoms  of  April,  pure,  fragrant  and  glad. 

Let  us  go  to  the  choir;  to  the  novice's  prayer 
Propitiously  listens  the  Virgin  so  fair; 

The  white  marble  Christ  on  the  crucifix  dies; 
And  there  without  stain  the  wax  tapers  rise  white. 
And  of  lace  is  the  curtain  so  thin  and  so  light. 

Which  the  day-dawn  already  shines  through  from  the  skies. 

Now  let  us  go  down  to  the  field.     Foaming  white. 
The  stream  seems  a  tumult  of  feathers  in  flight, 

As  its  waters  run,  foaming  and  singing  in  glee. 
In  its  airy  mantilla  of  mist  cool  and  pale 
The  mountain  is  wrapped;  the  swift  lark's  lateen  sail, 

Glides  out  and  is  lost  to  our  sight  on  the  sea. 

The  lovely  young  woman  now  springs  from  her  bed. 
On  her  goddess-like  shoulders  fresh  water  to  shed. 

On  her  fair,  polished  arms  and  her  beautiful  neck. 
Now,  singing  and  smiling,  she  girds  on  her  gown; 
Bright,  tremulous  drops,  from  her  hair  shaken  down, 

Her  comb  of  Arabian  ivory  deck. 

0  marble!  0  snows!  0  vast,  wonderful  whiteness! 

Vour  chaste  beauty  everywhere  sheds  its  pure  brightness, 

0  shy,  timid  vestal,  to  chastity  vowed! 
In  the  statue  of  beauty  eternal  are  you; 
From  your  soft  robe  is  purity  born,  ever  new; 

You  give  angels  wings,  and  give  mortals  a  shroud. 


THE  "MODERNISTA"  RENOVATION  25 

Vou  cover  the  child  t(i  whom  life  is  yet  new, 

Crown  the  hrows  of  the  niaitlcn  whoso  promise  is  true. 

Clothe  the  pajje  in  rich  raiment  that  shines  like  a  star. 
How  while  are  your  mantles  of  ermine,  O  queens! 
The  cradle  how  white,  where  the  fond  mother  leans! 

How  white,  my  beloved,  how  spotless  you  are! 

In  proud  dreams  of  love,  I  beiiolJ  with  delij^ht 
The  towers  of  a  church  rising  white  in  my  sight, 

And  a  home,  hid  in  lilies,  that  opens  to  me; 
And  a  bridal  veil  hung  on  your  forehead  so  fair, 
Like  a  filmy  cloud,  floating  down  slow  through  the  air. 

Till  it  rests  on  your  shoulders,  a  marvel  to  see!  ^^ 

The  parallel  between  Gutierrez  Najera  and  Dario  does 
not  stop  here,  however;  both  were  essentially  aristocratic 
natures;  neitlier  was  a  specimen  of  masculine  beauty.  The 
Mexican  was  of  medium  height,  with  a  large  head;  his  face 
was  somewhat  unsymmetrical, — a  detail  which  would 
doubtless  furnish  critics  of  decadence  with  a  handy  topic 
for  a  sermon  upon  physiognomy  and  mental  equilibrium; 
his  nose  was  ill-proportioned,  "cyranesque" ;  his  eyes  were 
slightly  oblique;  his  mustache  was  sparse  but  bristly;  his 
mouth  turned  to  one  side,  perhaps  because  of  his  inveterate 
cigar  smoking.  A  friend  (Jesus  Valenzuela)  describing 
him,  wrote  that  he  looked  like 

A  youthful  Japanese  in  terra  cotta. 

Was  it  not  Vargas  Vila  who  saw  in  his  friend  Dario  a 
marked  Mongolian  expression?  Was  not  Dario,  like 
Gutierrez  Najera,  like  the  later  Amado  Nervo  and  so  many 
other  Spanish-Americans,  tormented  by  the  necessities  of 

^''Version  by  Alice  Stone  Blackwell. 


26      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

journalism?  Did  they  not  both  seek  consolation  in  drink, 
— their  anaesthetic  for  life? 

The  chief  service  of  Gutierrez  Najera  to  Spanish-Amer- 
ican prose  and  poetry  was  his  introduction  of  melody  into 
the  structure  of  the  language;  after  him  the  verse  of  writers 
flows  more  smoothly,  more  musically;  the  prose  is  more 
agile,  more  luminous,  and  gleams  with  a  thousand  pregnant 
suggestions,  novel  images,  and  evidences  of  a  varied  cul- 
ture. He  did  not,  any  more  than  his  noted  successors,  de- 
nationalize Spanish  style;  he  broadened  it;  fertilized  it; 
increased  its  expressional  power,  and  answered  the  objec- 
tions of  his  critics,  as  his  eulogizer  Justo  Sierra  did  after 
him,  by  telling  them  that  since  art  lived  a  more  intense  life 
in  France  dian  elsewhere,  thither  must  those  who  would 
cultivate  art  go  for  their  supplies.  The  statement  looks 
more  servile  than  it  appears  in  his  work.  We  find  in  him 
something  more  than  the  precursor  of  a  school  or  a  move- 
ment; something  more  than  a  transitional  figure  who  im- 
bibed from  France  the  soul  of  music  that  was  to  infuse  new 
life  into  the  pallid  muse  of  Spanish-American  poesy.  He 
was  these  things  and  more.  He  was  a  vibrant  personality 
who  caught  these  various  influences  because  he  was  ready 
for  them;  the  French  infiltration  did  not  alter  him  funda- 
mentally, however  high  the  structure  that  it  reared  upon  his 
romantic  foundations;  at  bottom  he  remained  the  romantic, 
elegiac  spirit.  What  it  did  communicate  to  him,  however, 
was  a  refinement  of  his  natural  grace,  a  sublety  of  ex- 
pression that  was  necessary  to  the  expansion  of  a  person- 
ality rich  in  nuance, — a  lyric  nature  whose  note  echoes 
with  new  overtones. 

It  has  been  remarked  of  him, — and  it  should  be  noticed 


THE  "MODERNISTA"  RENOVATION  27 

of  many  anotlier,  since  we  are  too  prOne  to  see  in  the  objects 
of  our  study  a  rci^ular  (lin'elopmonl  that  is  not  always 
[Ht'stMit— tliat  his  advatu-r  docs  not  reveal  a  steady  progress 
through  the  various  dominant  French  schools  to  his  own 
artistic  self.  Parnassianism  of  a  sort  there  is  in  Gutierrez 
Najera;  but  never  of  the  type  that  seeks  to  take  refuge  in 
impersonality;  Symbolism  there  is  in  him  aplenty;  a  tinge 
of  Decadence,  it"  the  familiar  terminology  must  be  em- 
j)loyed.  But  however  consciously  he  absorbs  these  in- 
fluences, they  are  metamorphosed  into  a  product  entirely 
his  own.  Whether  we  read  tlie  Gutierrez  Najera  so  in- 
tensely adored  by  the  women — the  poet  of  Oridas  Muertas 
[Dead  Waves)  or  of  Mariposas  {Butterflies)  or  the  Guti- 
errez Najera  of  the  playful  conceits,  such  as  that  addressed 
to  the  Duchess  Job  (his  wife),  or  to  the  man  plunged  into 
tlie  vortex  of  modern  doubt, — we  come  face  to  face  with 
an  aspect  of  the  person  himself;  it  was  his  ambition  to 
transfuse  the  French  spirit  (Justo  Sierra  even  says  die 
French  thought)  into  the  Spanish  form;  he  accomplished 
the  purpose  by  making  himself  the  crucible  of  that  test. 

'A  seeking  soul,  torn  by  doubt,  a  prey  to  a  dominating* 
vice,  distilling  his  quer)-  into  melodious  beauty, — a  vagrant' 
spirit  caught  between  a  vanishing  world  and  a  nascent  era, 
— a  nature  shedding  his  inner  grace  upon  everything 
touched  by  his  pen, — such  was  the  suffering  poet  who  died 
midway  upon  the  journey  of  his  life,  mourned  by  the  conti- 
nent to  which  he  had  given  the  gifts  of  his  own  song  and  the 
impulse  of  fresh  artistic  conquests. 

The  various  moods  of  Gutierrez  Najera  are  not  distinct 
stages  in  the  transformation  of  a  man's  personality;  they 
are  the  different  aspects  of  a  spirit  compounded  of  a  facile 


28      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

wit,  an  ardent  nature,  and  that  deep  melancholy  that  so 
often  bides  beneath  the  outward  smile.  Before  his  gifts  as 
a  poet  he  feels  a  simple  wonder,  as  so  fancifully  expressed 
in  the  playful  "ars  poetica"  which  he  entitles  Nada  Es  Mio. 
Nothing  is  his,  he  tells  the  inquisitive  Rosa,  who  wishes  to 
learn  how  his  verses  are  made.  "I  myself  do  not  know. 
Like  your  ignorance,  Rosa,  so  mine  comes  from  heaven! 
I  do  not  write  my  verses,  I  do  not  create  them;  they  dwell 
within  me;  they  come  from  without;  this  playful  one  was 
formed  by  desire;  that  one,  drenched  with  light,  was  bom 
of  Spring!"  At  times  he  is  aided  by  the  magnificent  ruby 
of  the  dawn;  "I  make  a  verse  and  unwittingly  plagiarize 
some  unpublished  poet, — the  thrush,  the  chattering  spar- 
row, or  the  bee.  .  .  ." 

No  soy  poeta;  ya  lo  ves!     En  vano 
halagas  con  tal  titulo  mi  oido, 
que  no  es  zenzontle  6  ruisenor  el  nido, 
ni  tenor  6  baritone  el  piano! 

Beneath  this  poetical  denial  of  his  poetical  gifts,  so  char- 
acteristic of  the  poet's  whimsical  temperament  (a  trait  in 
which  so  many  of  his  followers  in  other  countries  are  sadly 
deficient,  but  which  has  been  carried  by  the  brilliant  Amado 
Nervo  to  the  heights  of  bizarre  genius)  lies  a  stratum  of  sin- 
/  cerity.  Poetry,  no  less  than  the  poet,  is  bom,  not  made. 
The  same  whimsical  note,  sparkling  with  foreign  allu- 
sion and  metrical  crispness,  sounds  from  the  well-known 
lines  to  the  Duchess  Job.  To  English  readers  the  rhymes 
and  rhythms  of  their  own  Gilbert  come  to  mind  in  such 

lines  as 

Mi  duquesita,  la  que  me  adora, 
no  tiene  humos  de  gran  senora ; 


THE  "MODERNISTA--  RENOVATION  29 

es  la  priseta  de  Paul  de  Kock. 
No  baila  hoston,  y  desconoce 
de  las  carreras  el  alto  g»)te, 
Y  los  placeres  del  five  o'clock. 

This,  however,  is  not  the  most  popular  of  the  author's 
styles;  it  requires  too  wide  an  acquaintance  with  foreign 
currents  of  thoup;ht;  it  represents  a  certain  ease,  an  ele- 
gance, a  grace,  which  however  evanescent  tlie  product  may 
he,  are  rooteil  in  a  cosmopolitan  cuhure.  More  to  the  taste 
of  tlie  Spanish-American  lover  of  verse  is  the  tender  mel- 
ancholy of  such  self- revealing  poems  as  Ondas  Miiertas,  in 
which  the  poet's  sadness  does  not  plumh  as  deep  as  the  de- 
vastating despair  of  Despues  or  the  Monologo  del  Incred- 
ulo.  Miss  Alice  Stone  Blackwell's  English  version  of  the 
poem  does  not  preserve  the  metrical  structure  of  the 
original — 

En  la  sombra,  debajo  de  la  tierra, 

donde  nunca  llego  la  mirada, 

se  deslizan  en  curso  infinite 

silenciosos  corrientes  de  agua — 

hut  it  affords  a  very  adequate  idea  of  the  poet's  thought,  in 
a  characteristic  effort  to  sound  the  depths  of  the  soul  that 
never  come  to  light. 

In  the  deep  darkness  underneath  the  ground, 

That  never  has  been  reached  by  mortal  sight, 
There  silent  currents  of  black  water  glide 

In  an  unending  course  amid  the  night. 
Some  of  them,  by  the  shining  steel  surprised 

That  pierces  through  the  rocks  to  their  dark  home. 
Limpid  and  boiling  to  the  light  gush  forth 

In  a  vast  plume  of  white  and  silvery  foam. 


30      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

The  others  in  deep  darkness  evermore 
Glide  silently  upon  their  winding  way, 

Doomed  to  a  course  unending  under  ground, 
Failing  to  find  an  outlet  to  the  day. 

The  noble  rivers  to  the  ocean  flow 

Past  field  and  forest,  meadow-bank  and  lawn 
Reflecting  in  their  silvery,  changeful  glass 

The  stars  of  heaven,  the  pale  tints  of  dawn. 
Veils  of  fair,  fragrant  blossoms  make  them  glad 

Nymphs  bathe  in  their  clear  current  with  delight; 
They  fertilize  the  rich  and  fruitful  vales; 

Their  waves  are  singing  water,  free  and  bright. 

In  the  white  marble  fountain,  lo!  the  stream 

Is  mischievous  and  playful,  sporting  there 
Like  a  young  girl  who,  in  a  palace  hall, 

Scatters  the  pearls  that  form  her  necklace  fair. 
Now  like  a  shining  arrow  it  shoots  up, 

Now  like  a  fan  it  opens  in  its  flow; 
It  splashes  glittering  diamonds  on  the  leaves, 

Or  sinks  to  slumber,  singing  soft  and  low. 

The  waves  that  in  the  mighty  ocean  swell 

Assail  the  craggy  rocks,  upsurging  high; 
Their  raging  fury  shakes  the  solid  earth. 
And  rises  up  in  tumult  to  the  sky. 
Those  waves  are  life  and  power  invincible; 
The  water  is  a  queen  with  wrath  on  fire, 
And  against  heaven  like  a  rival  fights, 

And  wages  war  with  gods  and  monsters  dire. 

How  difl'erent  is  the  sable  current  sad, 

Doomed  to  imprisonment  which  knows  no  end, 

Living  below  the  earth  in  sunless  depths, 
Down  deeper  even  than  the  dead  descend ! 

That  stream  has  never  known  what  light  may  be; 


THE  "MODERNISTA"  RENOVATION  35 

There  is  one  of  the  secrets  of  ihr  poet's  verse:  "Who 
Knows?"  For  happiness  is  of  yesterday  and  tomorrow  is 
"grief,  obscurity  and  death."  Beside  the  mere  coquetry 
of  a  Herrieis.'s  carpc  diem,  such  a  poem  as  A  Un  Triste, 
from  the  author's  Odas  Breves,  rings  with  a  deadly  earnest- 
ness that  may  not  enjoy  tlie  fleeting  pleasures  of  the  moment 
even  wlien  they  are  captured,  because  of  the  rankling  query 
that  outcries  the  clinking  of  glasses,  the  laughter  of  maidens 
and  the  intoxication  of  wine.  And  it  is  but  cold  consola- 
tion that  he  pron"ers,  with  the  parting  encouragement  that 
roses,  like  loves,  die  young. 

We  have  sampled  the  whimsical,  the  elegiac  and  the  t 
tenderly  melancholy  strains  in  our  poet;  let  us  approach  ' 
him  in  these  moods  where  he  seems  shaken  to  the  depths; 
where  he  is  a  prey  to  the  inner  conflicts  so  characteristic  of 
an  age  that  has  not  yet  found  itself, — that  proceeds  from 
scientific  surety  to  a  neo-metaphysical  questioning, — that 
seeks  to  resolve  doubt  by  resignation  or  affirmation, — that 
begins  to  wonder  whether  there  is  a  sole  truth,  and  has 
begun  to  sense  the  futility  of  dogma,  whether  clothed  in 
religion  or  in  science. 

In  this  connection  one  of  the  keynote  poems  is  the  Mono- 
logo  del  Incredulo, — an  important  human  document  in 
which  the  despair  of  the  poet  treads  upon  the  verge  of  what 
to  him  was  blasphemy,  and  the  brittle  rhythm  matches  the 
subject,  being  well  suited  to  the  curt  questioning,  the  sudden 
thoughts  and  the  distracted  debate. 

cLa  existencia  no  pedida 
que  nos  dan  y  conservamos, 
es  sentencia  merecida? 
decidme:  vale  la  vida 
la  pena  de  que  vivamos? 


36      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

The  opening  stanza  plants  the  bold  question:  "We  have 
not  asked  for  existence;  is  life  worth  the  trouble  of  being 
lived?" 

If  it  is  a  punishment,  what  sin  have  we  unknowingly 
committed?  If  it  is  a  reward,  what  was  it  awarded  for? 
The  life  of  the  happy  one  is  worth  while,  perhaps;  let  him 
watch  over  it  if  he  finds  felicity  here  below;  but  the  sufferer, 
— why  does  he  not  escape  it?  And  like  many  a  one  before 
him,  the  poet  reflects  that  although  life  was  not  a  boon  he 
asked  for,  death  is  in  his  own  hands.  By  the  same  token 
it  is  foolish  to  complain  against  fate;  that  would  be  ex- 
cusable were  not  death  possible,  but  since  it  is,  he  keeps 
silent.  But  is  that  silence  the  product  of  fear?  Fear  of 
what?  Of  that  God  who  gave  him  what  he  did  not  ask? 
If  he  should  meet  a  God  after  taking  his  life,  he  could  truly 
say  to  him,  "I  did  not  care  for  life ;  that  is  why  I  return  it 
to  you."  In  any  case,  let  none  blame  fate;  the  man  of 
strong  will  does  not  call  upon  death;  he  goes  out  fearlessly 
to  seek  it.  And  yet, — and  yet, — like  most  suicidal  phil- 
osophers, he  maintains  his  grip  upon  life.  Why?  Is  he 
happy?  Or  is  it  tliat,  once  here,  he  is  bound  to  his  parents, 
and  loves  them?  If  a  man  could  think  at  his  birth,  he 
would  surely  destroy  himself. 

Now  comes  a  transition  in  the  thought. 

Tengo  derecho  a  morir, 
mas  no  derecho  a  matar; 
y  comprendo  que  al  partir, 
si  con  la  muerte  he  de  ir 
me  ira  mi  madre  al  buscar. 

Puedo  matarme  serene, 
pero  mi  madre  adorada 


THE  "MODERNISTA"  RENOVATION  37 

creera  que  entre  llamas  peno; 
asi  es  (|ue  no  me  condeno 
y  a  el  la  dejo  cotuleiuula. 

He  has  the  right  to  die,  hut  not  the  right  to  kill;  he  knows 
that  were  he  to  commit  suicide  it  would  endanger  his 
mother's  life;  not  only  that,  but  were  she  to  survive  that 
grief,  she  would  believe  that  his  soul  was  burning  amid  the 
flames  of  sinners.  Here  is  a  strange  phase  of  that  love  for 
his  mother  which  so  often  appears  in  his  work. 

Life  now  looms  up  in  the  aspect  of  a  wily  deceiver. 
First  pleasure  leads  us  to  engender  existence,  and  then  life 
chains  us  to  duty.  And  just  as  he  was  brought  to  earth  by 
a  woman  who  afterwards  seemed  to  implore  his  pardon,  so 
he,  too,  in  tuni,  will  create  life  and  feel  grief  at  having 
created  it.  No,  suicide  were  better.  But  this  time  the 
thought  of  his  sweetheart  detains  him.  Here,  too,  how- 
ever, the  canker-worm  of  doubt  gnaws  at  his  heart.  Is  her 
love-  sincere?  Does  he  love  her?  And  later,  will  that 
love  endure?  Then  follows  a  verse  in  which  the  Tennyson- 
ian  "it  is  better  to  have  loved  and  lost  than  never  to  have 
loved  at  all,"  is  echoed  with  a  characteristic  note. 

Amar  y  no  ser  amado 
no  es  la  pena  mayor: 
ver  el  carino  apagado, 
no  amar  lo  antes  amado 
es  el  supremo  dolor, 

*'To  love  and  not  be  loved  in  return  is  not  the  greatest  grief. 
To  see  one's  affection  diminish  and  no  longer  love  the  one 
of  yore  is  the  supreme  sorrow." 

The  poet  would  have  death  or  the  certainty  of  God's 


38      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

power.  "Either  hasten  to  me,  oh  Death,  or  rise  from  the 
shadows,  oh  God!" 

I  do  not  say  that  this  is  a  great  poem;  I  do  not  say  that 
it  contains  any  remarkable  profundity  of  thought  or  beauty 
lof  language.  It  does,  however,  reveal  the  man  that  wrote 
it  and  the  experience  of  many  another  perturbed  spirit  of 
his  day  amid  the  storm  of  an  existence  that  strives  to  ra- 
tionalize joy  and  pain  and  give  a  meaning  to  life. 

And  when  the  poet  does  for  a  moment  find  a  refuge  from 
such  thoughts,  what  sort  of  peace  is  it  that  hovers  over  his 
soul?  He  himself  tells  us  in  his  Pax  Animce,  a  bitter-sweet 
production  in  which  the  rebellion  of  the  previous  poem  now 
and  then  storms  to  the  surface,  to  be  conquered  more  or  less 
by  resignation.  Be  proud  and  gallant  in  the  fall,  he 
counsels  the  poet;  "look  with  supreme  disdain  upon  all  the 
injustices  of  life!  Seek  no  constancy  in  love,  nor  ask  any- 
thing eternal  of  mortals;  make,  oh  artist,  of  your  griefs, 
supreme  sepulchral  monuments.  .  .  ."  He  does  not  agree 
with  the  famous  lines  from  Dante  that  there  is  no  grief  like 
remembrance  of  past  happiness  in  present  woe. 

En  esta  vida  el  unico  consuelo 
es  acordarse  de  las  horas  bellas.  .  .  . 

In  this  our  life  the  only  consolation 

Is  the  remembrance  of  hours  framed  in  beauty 

In  beauty  alone, — impassive  and  immortal  beauty, — is 
solace. 

Recordar  .  .  .  Perdonar  .  .  .  Haber  amado  .  .  . 
ser  dischoso  un  instante,  haber  creido  .  .  . 
y  luego  .  .  .  reclinarse  fatigado 
en  el  honibro  de  nieve  del  olvido. 


THE  "MODERN ISTA"  RENOVATION  39 

The  one  lesson  of  his  sorrow  is  to  seek  clarity  and  cahn  on 
the  summits;  love  and  pardon  those  around  you;  seek  that 
love  ami  pardon  above. 

The  fragment    To  Be  is  associated  naturally  with  the 
Monologue  of  the  Unbeliever. 

A  deep  abyss  is  this  our  human  grief! 
What  eye  has  ever  gazed  into  its  depths? 
Lend  but  your  ear  unto  tlie  dismal  pit 
Of  vanished  centuries.  .  .  . 

Within  tliere  falls 
An  eternal  tear! 

"A  groan  arises  tremblingly  from  the  white  bones.  Life  is 
grief.  And  the  life  of  the  sepulchre  may  be  a  gloomy  one, 
but  it  is  life  none  the  less.  .  .  ."  Suicide  would  be  vain. 
It  would  represent  merely  another  phase  of  the  essential, 
indestructible  matter  of  being.  We  live  in  grief;  the  great 
ambition  of  all  that  is,  is  to  be  lost  in  nothingness,  to  sleep 
without  dreams.  To  the  poet's  distracted  soul,  there  is  no 
"not  to  be";  it  is  all  a  grievous  being  with  no  outlet  for  the 
harassed  victim  of  life. 

It  is  in  the  poem  Despues,  however,  that  the  poet  strikes 
his  deepest  note  of  despair.  Here  the  thought  of  the  , 
Monologo  is  something  more  than  mere  complaint,  mere 
blasphemous  soliloquy.  To  read  the  poem  is  not  to  be  able 
to  detach  oneself  from  the  work  and  analyze  a  mood ;  we  are 
plunged  into  the  very  shadows  that  surround  the  frightened 
questioner  and  beat  about  the  darkness  without  shore. 

El  templo  colosal,  de  nave  inmensa 

esta  humedo  y  sombrio; 
sin  Acres  el  altar;  negro,  muy  negro; 

apagados  los  cirios! 


40      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

Senor,  ^en  donde  estas?     Te  busco  en  vano  .  .  .! 

jiEn  donde  estas,  oh  Cristo? 
Te  llamo  con  pavor  porque  estoy  solo, 
como  llama  a  su  padre  el  pobre  nino  .  .  .! 
Y  nadie  en  el  altar!     Nadie  en  la  nave! 
Todo  en  tinieblas  sepulcral  hundido! 
;Habla!     Que  suene  el  organo!     Que  vea 
en  el  desnudo  altar  arder  los  cirios!   .  .  . 
Ya  me  ahogo  en  la  sombra  .  .  .  ya  me  ahogo ! 

Resuscita,  Dios  mio! 

In  the  presence  of  such  a  human  outcry,  it  may  be  profit- 
able to  speak  of  the  metrical  skill  with  which  the  effects  are 
wrought,  of  the  symbolic  beauty  in  which  the  poet  drenches 
his  work;  but  above  and  beyond  this  is  the  eternal  flash  of 
his  query,  like  a  tongue  of  flame  pointing  to  the  heavens. 
.   .   .  Only  he  who  had  once  been  a  believer  could  have 

\ written  such  a  poem  of  unbelief.     Despues  deserves  a  place 
among  the  great  poems  of  the  Eternal  Query. 

The  prose  of  Gutierrez  Najera,  even  more  revolutionary 
than  his  poetry,  is  no  less  revelatory  of  the  man  who  guides 
the  pen.  It  is  no  less  indicative  of  a  highly  sensitive  nature 
that  was  certain  to  revivify  the  prose  of  his  day  because  of 
the  new  things  he  had  to  say  and  the  delicate  shades  of 
thought  he  tried  to  convey.  His  paradoxes,  his  numerous 
epigrams,  his  luminous  imagery,  his  flowing  line,  are  not 
so  many  disintegrated  elements  of  a  mosaic  manner;  they 
are  organic  parts  of  a  whole.  There  is  a  new  music  to  the 
phrases,  a  downy  tenderness ;  now  and  then  the  note  of  pure 
horror,  told  in  language  that  renders  the  horror  all  the 
more  poignant, — not  tlie  horror  of  a  Poe,  however,  and 
quite  devoid  of  that  technique  so  overprized  by  our  own 
writers;  the  prose,  indeed,  is  poetry  of  a  sort, — a  strange 


THE  "MODERNISTA"  RENOVATION  41 

rommingling  of  siil)staiHv  and  airiness,  more  crystalline 
tlian  that  of  Marti  (who  was  likewise  a  master  of  epigram 
and  imagery)  and  no  less  a  carrier  of  thought  framed  in 
beauty  than  that  of  Dario.  His  Smoke-Co  lor  cd  Tales  are 
notable  not  so  much  for  their  plot  as  for  their  melodic  am- 
plification of  a  lyric  mood.  Everywhere  is  the  brooding, 
tenderly  elegiac  note;  tliere  is  humor,  too;  the  humor  of  the 
facile  Duke  Job, — even  a  bitter,  ironic,  grim  humor.  How 
well  named  are  liis  Fragile  Tales!  The  fragility,  however, 
is  that  of  the  finely  labored  ivory  filigree;  the  humor  is  here 
bitter-sweet,  tlie  epigrams  are  barbed  thought  that  stings 
like  arrows.  The  author  is  fond  of  quasi-philosophic  or 
reminiscent  prologues  to  his  tales,  which,  as  we  may  be  now 
expect,  are  mood  rendered  vocal  rather  than  self-sufficient 
narrative.  At  times,  without  any  loss  of  virility  in  the  es- 
sential conception,  Gutierrez  Najera  writes  prose  that  pos- 
sesses the  subtle  charm  of  the  violin's  muted  strings. 
Ever)^here  is  the  lyric  attitude;  even  in  his  travels  he  looks 
at  the  cities  out  of  eyes  that  gaze  as  much  inward  as  outward,  i 

What  does  he  tell  us  in  this  music  of  language  that  is 
music  of  thought?  What  does  this  spirit,  attuned  to  such 
various  influences  as  Leconte  de  Lisle,  Verlaine,  Baude- 
laire, Carducci,  de  Castro,  d'Annunzio,  Dante,  Gabriel  Ros- 
setti,  Anatole  France,  Ibsen,  Tolstoi,  Nietzsche,  Renan,  dis- 
til from  the  multifarious  streams  of  world  thought  that 
inundate  his  early  provincial  soul?  Almost  wherever  we 
greet  him,  he  offers  us  something  peculiarly  his  own.  Let 
us  follow  him  for  a  few  moments  at  random  in  his  prose. 

'"I  did  not  see  this  tale,"  he  begins  his  homiletic  version 
of  the  Rip  Van  Winkle  legend,  called  Rip-Rip,  '*but  I  be- 
lieve I  dreamed  it."     This  prepares  us  at  the  very  start 


42      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

for  the  dreamy  atmosphere  so  proper  to  legends.  But  if 
you  imagine  that  we  have  been  launched  upon  the  story, 
you  are  mistaken.  "What  things  the  eyes  behold  when 
they  are  shut!  It  seems  impossible  that  we  contain  so 
many  persons  and  things  within  .  .  .  for  when  the  eyelids 
fall,  the  glance,  like  a  lady  closing  her  balcony-window, 
returns  to  see  what  is  inside  the  house.  Very  well;  this 
house  of  mine,  this  house  of  the  madame  Glance  that  I 
possess,  or  that  possesses  me,  is  a  palace,- a  city,  a  world, 
the  universe  .  .  .;  but  a  universe  which  ever  contains 
the  present,  the  past  and  the  future.  Judging  by  the  things 
that  I  see  in  my  sleep,  I  think  to  myself,  and  even  for  you, 
dear  readers:  Good  Lord,  what  things  the  blind  must  see! 
These,  who  are  always  asleep, — what  can  they  behold? 
Love  is  blind,  they  say.  And  love  is  the  sole  beholder  of 
God."  So,  in  his  Vestido  Blanco,  that  same  attraction  for 
the  color  white  appears  that  is  so  noticeable  and  so  notable 
in  his  sterling  poem,  De  Blanco.  So,  too,  in  his  Cuento 
Triste  (I  am  seeking  now  insights  into  his  moods  and  paral- 
lels with  his  poetry  rather  than  mere  plots)  he  finds  himself 
unable  to  sing,  because  '"harmonies  do  not  rise  from  the 
lute  whose  strings  are  broken,  nor  does  chirping  sound  from 
the  abandoned  nest.  ...  I  have  pursued  love  and  glory 
like  the  children  who  run  after  the  coquettish  butter- 
fly that  mocks  at  their  pursuit  and  their  laughter.  All  the 
roses  that  I  found  had  thorns, — all  the  hearts,  forgetfulness. 
.  .  .  There  was  a  moment  in  which  I  thought  that  love 
was  absolute  and  unique.  There  is  only  one  love  in  my 
soul,  as  there  is  only  one  sun  in  the  sky,  I  said  to  myself 
then.  Afterwards,  studying  astronomy,  I  learned  that 
there  were  many  suns.     I  knocked  at  the  door  of  many 


THF  '^MODERNISTA"  IIFNOVATION  43 

liearts  and  they  did  not  open  to  nu\  because  no  one  was 
witliin."  Tlie  note  of  loneliness  amid  the  crowd — our 
poet  disliked  multitudes — sounds  most  naturally  from  the 
man  whose  superiority  isolates  him.  In  his  Las  Almas 
Huerfanas  (Orphan  Souls),  turning  the  famous  biblical 
lines  to  lyric  use,  he  tells  us 

tienen  ojos  y  a  mi  no  nie  miran; 
tienen  labios  y  a  mi  no  nic  hablan. 

Eyes  have  they  yet  do  not  see  me; 
Lips  have  they,  yet  speak  not  to  me. 

How  far  is  this  from  the  witty  whimster  who,  in  his  account 
of  a  comet's  progress  {Los  Amores  del  Cometa)  can  mingle 
fact  and  fancy  in  so  striking  a  manner!  And  yet  even 
here,  amid  a  fascinating  discourse  of  such  nonsense  as  is 
relished  by  tlie  best  of  men,  he  must  strike  his  character- 
istic note,  comment  upon  the  fleeting  aspect  of  things,  and 
counsel  us  to  seize  the  day  while  we  may! 

A  turn  of  the  page  and  we  find  our  responsive  spirit  wan- 
dering into  a  circus  tent.  And  what  does  he  cany  forth? 
A  detestation  for  those  spectacles  in  which  he  beholds 
human  debasement.  A  horror  for  the  utter  denial  of  "the 
most  noble  gift  of  God :  thought."  A  deep  sympathy,  above 
all,  for  the  poor  exploited  children  of  the  circus.  His  at- 
tention is  soon  centered  upon  a  little  "daughter  of  the  air." 
.  ,  .  "Tell  me,  dear  little  girl,  have  you  no  mother? 
Were  you,  perchance,  born  of  a  night's  passion,  or  did  you 
come  to  earth  upon  a  moonbeam?  If  you  had  a  mother, 
— if  they  tore  you  from  her  arms, — she,  with  that  incom- 
parable divination  which  love  gives  us,  would  know  that 


44      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

here  you  were  weeping  and  suffering;  crossing  seas  and 
mountains  she  would  come  like  a  madwoman  to  free  you 
from  this  slavery,  this  torture!  No,  there  is  no  such  thing 
as  an  evil  mother.  The  mother  is  the  projection  of  God 
upon  earth.  You  are  an  orphan."  In  the  last  sentence 
but  one  we  find  one  of  the  dominant  inspirations  of  the 
author:  that  mother  through  whom  he  knew  God,  and  to 
whom,  when  firm  belief  deserted  him,  he  still  clung  in 
thought  and  labor.  In  the  same  tale  of  the  circus  he  shows 
himself  capable  of  a  most  powerful,  even  if  poetical,  pro- 
test against  the  exploitation  of  the  child  in  the  acquisition 
of  money. 

He  is,  like  all  persons  possessed  of  a  sense  of  hmnor, 
capable  of  poking  fun  at  himself  and  his  fellow  writers,  to 
whom,  in  the  delightful  skit  entitled  Historia  de  un  Corista, 
he  refers  as  "men  who,  for  lack  of  Champagne  and  Bour- 
gogne,  drink  down  in  gulps  that  thick,  dark  liquid  called 
ink."  And  such  a  chorus  girl  as  this  is!  She  quotes 
Greek  mythology  and  Hugo  with  equal  ease,  and  when  it 
comes  to  veiling  the  dubious  aspect  of  her  career,  what  a 
mastery  of  innuendo  she  displays.  His  words  on  the  evil 
effects  of  drink  are  doubly  effective  because  of  his  own 
well-known  weakness.  "Man  thinks  that  he  is  drinking 
the  glass,"  he  avers,  in  Semana  de  Ldzaro,  "but  he  is  de- 
ceived, for  it  is  the  glass  that  drinks  him.  At  first  he 
drains  it  at  a  single  gulp;  but  the  glass  recoups  its  losses, 
and  the  man  must  fill  it  with  somewhat  of  his  mind,  with 
somewhat  of  his  heart,  witli  somewhat  of  his  soul.  A  glass 
seems  so  narrow,  and  within  it,  nevertheless,  so  many  sons, 
so  many  mothers,  so  many  wives,  so  many  lives  have  been 
drowned!" 


THE  "MODERNISTA"  RENOVATION  45 

His  words  upon  music  are  likewise  indicative  of  the  man 
who  brought  music  into  tlie  reahn  of  modeniism.  "Music 
is  a  docile,  olxnlient  love  that  submits  to  all  ca|)rices,  like 
the  odalisk  wlu),  to  please  her  mastt>r,  places  around  his 
neck  the  divine  necklace  of  her  arms,  or  watches  over  his 
repose  with  discreet  attitude,  refreshing  his  atmosphere 
with  her  Ian.  It  comes  to  us  on  tiptoe,  so  as  not  to  waken 
us  if  we  are  asleep,  knocks  at  our  door  and  asks,  'What 
sentiments  would  you  have  me  rouse  in  you?'  Therefore 
yesterilay  we  laughed  to  the  same  harmonies  that  today 
cause  us  tears.  Music  does  not  impose  its  will;  it  does  not 
dominate;  it  is  the  language  that  adapts  itself  to  all  pas- 
sions; the  tongue  of  the  lion  which,  by  dint  of  caressingly 
licking  the  foot  of  his  master,  finally  makes  a  wound.  On 
the  same  note  Faust  meditates.  Marguerite  sobs  and  Me- 
phistopheles  laughs."  Rarely  has  more  been  said  of  music 
in  so  few  words.  The  metaphor  of  the  lion,  besides  con- 
taining a  most  adaptable  pun  on  the  word  tongue,  is  imbued 
with  a  deep  truth;  if  we  slay  the  things  we  love,  the  things 
we  love  slay  us  no  less.  By  a  single  reference  to  the  opera 
Faust  he  conveys  the  multiple  appeal  which  is  music's 
eternal  charm. 

Such  is  the  charming  personality  that  is  hidden  by  the 
pseudonym  Duke  Job.  Whether,  with  his  deep  fondness 
for  children,  he  tells  us  a  tender  tale  of  sadness  or  death; 
whether,  with  his  inquisitive  nature,  he  engages  in  that 
strangest  occupation  for  a  poet, — the  scientific  elucidation 
of  a  fairy  tale;  whether  he  attends  a  murder  trial  and 
brings  back  a  report  that  would  grievously  disappoint  the 
prurient  readers  whom  Dur  own  "star"  reporters  have  been 
trained  to  pamper;  whether  he  visits  cities  and  summons 


46      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

most  iin-touristic  thoughts;  the  essential  Gutierrez  Najera  is 
visible. 

Gutierrez  Najera  is,  whatever  his  medium,  fundamentally 
a  poet;  his  prose,  even  his  so-called  journalism,  is,  in  es- 
sence, poetry.  He  sees  in  images  and  thinks  in  terms  of 
feeling.  Deeply  romantic  in  nature,  he  is  by  the  spirit  of 
the  times  plunged  into  the  maelstrom  of  modern  thought, 
amid  which  he  attempts  to  preserve  a  yielding  faith;  this 
faith,  like  all  departing  creeds,  seeks  new  altars.  The 
query  of  that  quest  vibrates  in  his  verses, — now  soothed  by 
resignation,  now  calmed  by  renunciation,  now  blasphemous 
with  despair,  and  never  completely  satisfied.  This  is  the 
real  man  beneath  the  verbal  melodist,  the  revolutionary 
force  in  journalism,  the  inquiring  soul  that  poured  its 
beauty  alike  into  the  Parnassian  urn  and  the  neo-Hellenic 
vase,  and  plucked  the  strings  of  the  Symbolist  harp.  He  is 
a  modernist  precursor  not  through  a  mere  pruriency  for 
novelty,  not  through  an  affected  exoticism,  but  because  he 
helped  fashion  a  new  interpretative  medium  for  a  new  out- 
look. Rise  what  may  out  of  Pandora's  box,  mankind  must 
peer  within.  .  .  . 

2.  Jose  Marti 

(1853-1895) 

The  resemblances  among  the  more  noted  exponents  of 
modernism  are  many;  there  is  the  note  of  growing  cosmo- 
politanism, the  morbid  tendency,  the  pale  cast  of  thought, 
the  resurgence  of  self.  From  among  tliese  figures,  how- 
ever, that  of  Marti,  "the  gallant  paladin  of  Cuban  free- 


THE  "MODERN  1ST  A"  RENOVATION  47 

cloni,"  stands  out  as  an  exception.  True,  Marti  shared,  and 
even  contributed  early  vigor  to,  tlu'  dominant  character- 
istics of  modernism.  In  him,  however,  no  morl)i(lity,  no 
preoccupation  with  metaphysical  mysteries;  he  is  the  rebel 
in  action, — a  volcanic  force  driven  by  fate,  like  a  Wander- 
ing Jew  of  liberty,  through  many  lands  and  to  many  hearts. 
Like  so  many  of  his  fellows,  he  became  early  embroiled 
in  journalism,  and,  imbued  with  a  passionate  desire  for  his 
country's  independence,  voiced  that  ideal  with  the  rashness 
of  Latin  youth.  Before  he  was  well  along  in  his  'teens, 
he  was  deported  to  Spain  for  his  "insurrecto"  spirit,  and 
while  there  was  allowed  to  study  law;  he  completed  the 
course -at  Zaragoza.  Returning  to  Spanish  America  he 
married  in  Mexico  (1873)  and  five  years  later  went  back 
to  the  scene  of  his  early  efforts,  conspiring  against  Spain 
under  the  guise  of  practising  law.  There  follows  (1879) 
a  second  deportation;  this  time,  however,  he  managed  to 
escape  to  France,  eventually  reaching  New  York,  making 
his  way  to  Venezuela  and  returning  to  New  York,  where  he 
engaged  in  journalism  for  La  Nacion  (Buenos  Aires),  wrote 
for  the  Neiv  York  Sun  on  art,  incessantly  strove  to  maintain 
the  fires  of  Cuban  liberty  burning  in  the  hearts  of  the 
Spanish-Americans  there,  and  published  two  collections  of 
verse:  Ismaelillo  and  Versos  Sencillos.  And  now  his  la- 
bors, which  had  taken  him  to  Paris,  London,  Mexico,  the 
United  States, — began  to  bear  fruit.  The  final  result, 
however,  he  was  destined  never  to  behold,  for  on  the  19th 
of  May,  1895,  he  was  shot  at  Dos  Rios,  on  his  native  soil, 
while  attempting  to  leave  the  island. 

So  much  of  Marti  (and  how  much  it  is!)  belongs  to  his- 
tory.    But  there  is  much  of  him  that  belongs  to  letters, — a 


48      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

little  of  his  poetry  (not  so  much  as  the  generous  Dario 
would  lead  one  to  believe  from  his  paper  on  Marti  in 
Los  Raros)  and  a  great  deal  of  his  prose.  Even  more, 
perhaps,  of  that  elusive  emanation  which  we  term  a  man's 
spirit,  only  because  language  is  still  inadequate  to  the 
conveyance  of  human  feeling. 

Marti,  in  his  glowing  eulogy  of  Perez  Bonalde,  has  left 
us  an  excellent  declaration  of  his  views  upon  poetry.  He 
reveals  himself  as  an  out-and-out  apostle  of  personality, 
aware  of  time's  conflicting  currents,  plunged  in  the  struggle 
for  liberty  (of  which  he  has  a  most  undogmatic  conception, 
comparable  with  Rodo's  vision  of  enlightened  democracy), 
and  hence  with  a  trace  of  the  utilitarian  in  his  poetic  de- 
mands.^^  "The  first  labor  of  man,"  he  proclaims,  "is  to 
reconquer  himself.  Men  must  be  returned  to  themselves. 
.  .  .  Only  the  genuine  is  powerful.  What  others  leave 
to  us  is  like  warmed-over  food."  One  element  at  least,  in 
man's  surroundings,  responds  to  his  desires:  the  free 
choice  of  educative  influences.  He  can  behold  neither  lit- 
erary originality  nor  political  liberty  without  spiritual  free- 
dom. Note  this  insistence  upon  self;  upon  the  linking  of 
the  literary  and  political  aspects  of  human  activity.  The 
multiple  self  of  which  Gutierrez  Najera  speaks  and  for 
which  Marti  combats  is  to  blossom  into  Rodo's  masterpiece, 
the  Motivos  de  Proteo,  which  is  one  of  the  most  suggestive 
of  modern  probings  into  the  many  latent  possibilities  of  per- 
sonality. 

To  Marti,  the  poem  is  in  the  man  and  in  nature.  He  is 
so  eager  for  spontaneity  that  he  considers  perfection  of 

1^  Cf.  the  similar  views  of  poetry  entertained  by  another  man  of  action, 
the  versatile,  restless  Rufino  Blanco-Fombona. 


THE  "MODERNISTA"  RENOVATION  49 

form  as  being  purchased  at  the  price  of  the  fecundating 
idea.  *'A  tempest  is  iiKire  beautiful  than  a  locomotive." 
This  spontaneity  is  what  he  so  much  admired  in  Bonalde's 
noted  poem  upon  Niagara.  ""To  polish  is  all  very  well, 
but  within  the  mind  and  before  the  verse  leaps  from  the 
lip."  And  if  you  object  that  such  slavery  to  spontaneity 
injures  the  beauty  of  art,  he  replies,  "He  who  goes  in 
search  of  mountains  does  not  pause  to  pick  up  the  stones 
of  the  road.  .  .  .  Wlio  does  not  know  that  language  is  the 
horseman  of  thought,  and  not  its  horse?  The  imperfection 
of  human  language, — its  inadequacy  to  the  expression  of 
man's  judgments,  affections  and  designs  is  a  perfect,  abso- 
lute proof  of  the  necessity  for  a  future  existence."  Note, 
in  passing,  another  difference  between  the  active,  optimistic, 
implicitly  believing  Marti  and  tlie  foundering  precursors  of 
his  day.  "No,  human  life  is  not  all  of  life!  The  tomb  is 
a  path,  not  an  end.  The  mind  could  not  conceive  what  it 
was  incapable  of  realizing.  .  .  ."  And,  returning  to  his 
manifesto  of  spiritual  independence:  "No,  leave  small 
things  to  small  spirits.  Lay  aside  the  hollow,  hackneyed 
rhymes,  strung  with  artificial  pearls,  garlanded  with  arti- 
ficial flowers.  .  .  ."  Away  with  affected  Latinism  and 
the  bookish  ills,  counsels  Marti.  With  lips  tightly  pressed, 
breast  bare  and  clenched  fist  raised  to  heaven,  demand  of 
life  its  secret! 

The  translator  of  Helen  Hunt  Jackson's  Ramona,  the 
revealer  of  Walt  Whitman,  the  man  who  imbibed  law  at 
Seville  and  Zaragoza,  immersing  himself  at  the  same  time 
in  Santa  Teresa,  Cervantes,  Calderon,  Quevedo,  did  not 
manage  to  communicate  the  ardor  of  his  theory  to  his 
verses,  which  are  more  simple  and  tender  than  would  be 


50      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

expected.  They  are  characteristically  sincere,  written 
"not  in  academic  ink  but  in  my  own  blood."  At  times 
they  possess  the  suggestion  of  de  Campoamor,  as  in  the 
following  excerpt: 

Un  beso! 
— Espera ! 
Aquel  dia 
AI  despedirse  se  amaron. 

Un  beso! 
— Toma. 
Aquel  dia 
Al  despedirse  lloraron. 

A  similar  note  of  love  and  disillusionment  rings  from 
the  brief  drama  that  follows : 

Entro  la  nina  en  el  bosque 
Del  brazo  de  su  galan, 

Y  se  oyo  un  beso,  otro  beso, 

Y  no  se  oyo  nada  mas. 

Una  bora  en  el  bosque  estuvo, 
Salio  al  fin  sin  su  galan: 
Se  oyo  un  sollozo;  un  sollozo, 

Y  despues  no  se  oyo  mas. 

It  is  not  in  his  verse, — his  paternal  delights,  his  love 
plaints,  his  patriotic  poems, — that  we  must  seek  the  lit- 
erary revolutionist,  but  in  his  prose.  And  such  a  prose! 
One  countryman  has  called  it  the  "symphony  of  a  fantastic 
forest  where  invisible  gnomes  enchant  our  ears  with  a 
flock  of  harmonies,  and  our  eyes  with  a  tempest  of  colors." 
Despite  an  occasional  involution  of  phraseology  and  a  ver- 


THE  "MODERNISTA"  RENOVATION  51 

itable  cataract  of  images  lie  makes  deliglitful,  yet  impres- 
sive, reading.  If  Gutierrez  Najera's  prose  is  the  graceful 
violin,  alternately  muted  by  hushed  thoughts  and  swelled 
hy  passionate  utterance,  the  j)rose  of  Jose  Marti  is  a 
Wagnerian_orchcstra.  Itldasts  with  trumpet-like  sonoF;  , 
ity;  It  scatters  sparks;  it  is,  indeed,  as  the  man  himself  was, 
incenaiary.  His  journalistic  labors  moulded  a  new  stand- 
ard; from  him  Dario  learned  much  of  the  secret  of  such 
enduring  correspondence  as  makes  up  the  great  poet's  vol- 
umes of  newspaper  labors.  Marti,  too,  is  a  notable  wielder 
of  the  epigram;  indeed,  this  aspect  of  his  prose  is  strik- 
ingly illustrated  by  a  recent  collection,^"  made  up  entirely 
of  chips  from  the  statue  of  his  prose.  In  all  the  one  hun- 
dred and  forty-six  octavo  pages  of  the  book  there  is  a  sur- 
prisingly low  number  of  platitudes. 

"There  are  cries  that  sum  up  an  entire  epoch,"  Marti  has 
asserted.  Marti  himself  was  such  a  cry.  Was  it  not  he 
who  opened  one  of  his  speeches  with  the  affirmation  that 
"I  am  not  a  man  speaking,  but  a  people  protesting"?  And 
he  spoke  not  alone  for  Cuba,  but  for  all  of  Spanish  Amer- 
ica. He  is  looked  upon  by  those  advanced  minds  in  whom 
he  sowed  the  seed  of  clamant  freedom  as  not  only  a  pre- 
cursor of  modernism  in  its  narrower  sense,  but  as  one  of 
the  founders  of  literary,  as  well  as  political,  Americanism. 
He  was  the  proclaimer  of  a  continental  fatherland, — a 
Magna  Patria.  He  did  not  believe  in  Cuba's  annexation 
to  the  Republic  of  the  North;  knowing  both  nations  inti- 
mately, he  saw  that  only  a  virile  Cuba  could  win  the  re 
spect  of  a  virile  United  States. 

'-  Granos  de  Oro.  Pensamientos  Seleccionades  en  las  Obras  de  Jose  Marti.. 
Pot  Rafael  G.  Argolagos.     La  Habana.     1918. 


52      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

A  remarkable  union  of  the  man  of  contemplation  and 
the  man  of  action,  a  vagrant  pioneer  in  both  mind  and 
body,  an  innovator  in  language  because  of  the  new  vision 
he  beheld,  Marti  is  enshrined  in  both  the  literature  and  the 
history  of  his  people.  His  life  was  as  noble  as  his  writ- 
ings; he  died  for  that  to  which  he  had  devoted  his  life,  and 
Cuba  is  his  monument. 

3.  Julian  del  Casal 

(1863-1893) 

The  life  of  the  Cuban  Casal  is  as  marked  a  contrast  to 
that  of  his  compatriot  Marti  as  any  life  well  could  be. 
Exhibiting  more  than  one  of  the  traits  of  Gutierrez  Najera, 
he  more  closely  resembles,  in  his  inner  existence  and  his 
poetic  product,  the  gifted  Colombian,  Jose  Ansuncion 
Silva,  whom  I  shall  take  up  after  him.  Julian  del  Casal, 
in  his  brief  career  (and  how  all  too  brief  are  the  lives  of 
so  many  of  these  agitated  spirits!)  underwent,  like  the  mod- 
em child  he  was,  a  variety  of  influences  that  corresponded 
to  his  neurotic,  morbid  personality, — Jean  Richepin, 
Heredia  of  the  flawless  sonnets,  Judith  Gautier  of  the 
Oriental  flavor,  Baudelaire  of  the  flowers  of  evil,  Ver- 
laine  of  the  lyric  soul  turned  song.  A  stranger  to  what 
is  commonly  called  life,  his  poems  throb  with  a  feverish 
intensity  of  internal  existence.  Cejador  y  Frauca  refuses 
to  place  del  Casal  among  the  modernists.  "I  find  no 
point  of  comparison,"  he  asserts,  "between  Casal  and  the 
modernistas."  He  is  "sound  and  robust,  without  the 
slightest    decadentism    in    thought    or   expression."     The 


I 


THE  "MODERNISTA"  RENOVATION  53 

opinion  is  a  strange  one  indeed;  eitVier  the  Spanish  critic's 
definition  of  decadentism  is  an  exceedingly  ehistic  one, 
(and  it  surely  is  an  unsparing  castigation  that  recalls  Max 
Nordau  at  his  best — or  worst!)  or  else  Casal  is  very  much 
"ileeadent"  indet'd.  It  has  been  asserted  that  the  Cuban 
poet  never  experienced  the  griefs  of  which  he  sung;  if  that 
be  the  case,  we  have  in  his  productions  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  examples  _of_Bersonaj  projection__into_aJien 
nioocU  that  modern  psychology  can  furnish. 

His  poetry  reveals  him  as  a  faithful  yet  hopeless  seeker 
after  beauty;  he  is  capable  of  looking  upon  nature  not 
through  rose-colored,  but  through  blood-colored  glasses  (as 
in  the  poem  Crepuscular,  with  its  bold  opening  comparison 
of  the  sunset  to  a  slashed  stomach)  or  of  commenting  iron- 
ically upon  it  in  a  poem  ostensibly  dedicated  to  the  coun- 
tr}'  [En  El  Campo]^  biUJn^ reality  asserting  his  "impure 
love  of  cities";  his  morbid  presentiment  o7  that  early  death 
which  overtook  him  as  it  did^utierrez  Najera  and  Silva, 
recurs  with  overtones  of  disillusionment,  hopelessness,  yet 
ever  with  sincerity ;  lilce~STIva7Tie~tEinks  for  a  moment  oF 
his  childhood,  onTy^To  tell  himself  that  he  will  be  the  hang- 
man of  his  own  happiness,  as  indeed  his  verses  show  him  to 
have  been;  like  so  many  of  his  confreres,  he  knows  the 
price  of  eating  from  the  tree  of  knowledge;  his  morbid  in- 
trospection is  so  faithfully  recorded  in  any  number  of 
poems,  that  if  it  be  true  they  were  bookish  inspirations 
rather  than  the  product  of  actual  events,  I  make  bold  to 
say  that  Casal's  realjife  wasjthe  life  that  no  one  saw, — 
the  life  within.  He  never  expects  to  attain  to  manhood, 
and  despite  his  griefs,  does  not  feel  "the  nostalgia  of  hap- 


54      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

piness";  indeed,  his  wandering  soul  yearns  only  for  what 
he  may  not  attain,  whether  that  be  ineffable  beauty  or  dis- 
tant lands. 

Ver  otro  cielo,  otro  monte, 
Oltra  playa,  otro  horiionte, 

Otro  mar, 
Otros  pueblos,  otras  gentes 
De  maneras  diferentes 
De  pensar. 

Such  is  one  of  his  Nostalgias;  yet  could  he  reach  these  other 
scenes,  these  other  peoples,  would  he  really  go?  "But  I 
go  not,"  he  concludes.  "Were  I  to  leave  I  should  promptly 
return.  When  will  destiny  be  pleased  to  grant  me  rest 
upon  my  journey?"  At  times  (Esquivez)  he  fears  to  be 
lured  by  the  love  of  this  world,  because  of  his  presentiment 
that  he  must  so  soon  leave  it,  and  in  the  same  poem  he 
speaks  of  his  "infinite  homesickness  for  the  other  world; 
his  love  of  night  [Laus  Noctis)  may  be  due  to  the  fact  that 
it  most  suggests  the  death  he  often  longs  for;  for  night  to 
him,  like  death,  is  the  door  to  a  deeper  life;  at  times,  with 
a  sort  of  masochistic  touch  (Oracion)  he  prefers  torment 
to  rest,  suffering  to  ennui;  he  knows  the  age-old  struggle 
between  the  spirit  and  the  flesh,  yet  cannot  resolve  it;  he 
recommends  a  volume  of  Leopardi's  poems  with  the  lines 
that  it  will  teach  the  recipient 

The  wealth  of  greatness  that  is  girt  by  grief 
The  infinile  vanity  of  everything. 

Sending  his  photograph  to  the  same  friend  he  sees  in  his 
own  features  "the  indifference  of  one  who  yearns  for 
nothing,  or   the    corporeal    fatigue   of   the    brute."     Pax 


THE  "MODERNISTA"  RENOVATION  55 

Animae,  one  dI  his  numerous  sonnets  (a  Tonn  he  manip- 
ulated with  great  skill  and  uncommon  beau4y  of  I'orni  and 
imagery)  belies  its  title,  which  is  the  mocking  grin  of  the 
skull;  his  sonnet  to  his  mother  (which  is  really  to  himself) 
represents  her  as  dying  at  his  birth, — a  symbol  of  the 
wretched  life  he  is  to  lead;  his  spiritual  landscape  {Paisaje 
Espiritual),  like  his  Nostalgias,  reveals  a  soul  fearful  alike 
of  life  or  dealli;  more  than  once  he  displays  the  neurotic's 
desire  to  escape  from  the  world  {Tras  un  Enfermedad)  \ 
everywhere,  even  in  the  eyes  of  his  beloved,  whom,  char- 
acteristically enough,  he  has  never  known,  he  sees  lurking 
death, — "el  terror  invincible  de  la  muerte."  Who,  after 
reading  Dario's  autobiography,  for  example,  can  fail  to 
see  in  this  mental  phenomenon  not  the  affectation  of  an 
artist,  but  the  agonies  of  a  man  transformed  into  art?  It 
is  more  than  mere  paradox  to_say_that  CasaFs  death,  like 
that  of  other  poets  of  the  same  movement,  beforeHIm  and 
after,  proves  his  life.  In  the  eight  lines  of  his  Flores  he 
runs  the  gamut  from  faith  to  blasphemy:  "My  heart  was 
an  alabastrine  vase,  where  grew  in  fragrant  solitude,  un- 
der the  purest  gleam  of  a  star,  a  white  lily, — prayer. 
Withered  is  this  flower  of  delicate  perfume,  like  a  virgin 
consumed  by  anaemia.  Today  in  my  heart  a  purple  rose- 
bay  grows, — blasphemy."  Surely  this  part  of  his  work 
is  decadentism  of  a  refined  type  and  in  a  non-depreciatory 
sense;  but  decadentism  none  the  less. 

Like  a  true  son  of  Cuba,  Casal  could  not,  with  all  the 
exoticism  that  transformed  his  daily  surroundings  into  a 
Japanese  world-in-little,  keep  his  oar  out  of  the  political 
waters.  The  poet  of  morbid  presentiments  was,  in  his 
strange  life,  amid  his  evocations  of  ancient  Greece  and 


56      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

modem  France,  a  man  of  his  day  who  clashed  with  official- 
dom because  of  the  nature  of  some  writings.  Had  he 
lived  longer,  this  more  public  phase  of  his  character  might 
have  developed;  such  was  the  case  with  his  friend  and 
admirer  Dario,  on  the  occasion  of  whose  departure  after 
a  visit  to  Cuba  he  penned  his  Pdginas  de  Vida,  a  poem  that 
affords  an  insight  into  both  poets.  Casal  pictures  the  deck 
of  the  ancient  vessel  on  which  he  is  told  the  tale  of  the 
other  poet's  life.  Tlie  Dario  he  represents,  though  essen- 
tially the  real  man,  appears  somewhat  over-optimistic,  per- 
haps in  contrast  to  Casal's  black  pessimism. 

;  Ignea  columna  sigue  mi  paso  cierto! 
i  Salvadora  creencia  mi  animo  salva ! 
Yo  se  que  tras  las  olas  me  aguarda  el  puerto! 
Yo  se  que  tras  la  noche  surgira  el  alba. 

Si  hubieramos  mas  tiempo  juntos  vivido, 
No  nos  fuera  la  ausencia  tan  dolorosa, 
jTu  cultivas  tus  males,  yo  el  mio  olvido! 
jTu  lo  ves  todo  en  negro,  yo  todo  en  rosa! 

It  may  be  true  that  Casal  saw  everything  in  its  dark  aspect; 
but  certainly  Dario's  glasses  were  not  always  rose-colored! 
Casal  was  an  ultra-refined  soul  who  sought  escape  from 
life  in  beauty;  the  quality  of  refinement  he  shared  with 
more  than  one  other  spiritual  contemporary.  There  may 
have  been  an  element  of  imitation  in  this  hyper-aestlieticism, 
as  there  surely  was  of  inadaptability  to  the  environment, 
but  it  should  be  recalled  that  we  reveal  ourselves  often  as 
much  in  what  we  imitate  as  in  what  we  originate.  If  lit- 
terary  influence  consisted  of  mere  imitatioii^jTt  would  be 
an  endless  mirroring  of  primitive  models;  even  in  imita- 


THE  "MODERNISTA"  RENOVATION  57 

tion  tlierfi_is  selectiun  ol  a  sorL,  aad  that  is  preferable  to 
stagnant  acceptance  ol"  sterile  '^models." 

4.  Jose  Asuncion  Silva 
(186S-1896) 

The  position  of  Silva  as  a  precnrsor  is  somewhat  prob- 
lematical. Some  Spanish-Americans  omit  him  from  the 
list  of  foreninners,  but  none  can  deny  the  man's  gifts  or 
his^  influence.  The  verses  of  this  great  Colombian  echo 
the  malady  of  the  cenluiy;  futile  questioning  of  fate  and 
life,  unalloyed  by  the  faith  that  mitigates  the  sufferings  of 
a  Gutierrez  Najera  or  a  Dario;  a  deep  sincerity  that  goes 
further  than  the  suicidal  monologue  of  the  former,  ending 
that  life  which  he  could  neither  control  nor  understand. 
\\  ith  what  persistence  the  thought  of  death  haunts  these 
modernists,  who  have  so  enriched  life!  Through  the  poems 
of  Gutierrez  Najera,  through  Silva,  through  Dario,  through 
Julian  del  Casal,  stalks  the  sombre  shadow  of  Death, — not 
tlie  romantic  pose  of  morbid  youth,  for  these  men  are 
deeply  sincere. 

Silva  was  bom  in  Bogota,  tlie  capital  of  Colombia; 
whatever  benefit  he  might  have  derived  from  paternal  in- 
heritance was  consumed  in  one  of  the  frequent  revolutions 
Uiat  still  agitate  Spanish-American  politics.  His  regular 
instruction,  which  was  of  short  and  fragmentary  nature, 
was  added  to  by  personal  effort  to  understand  tlie  new 
ideas  of  the  age.  As  the  result  of  an  early  trip  to  Paris  he 
was  impressed  with  such  poets  as  Mallarme,  Verlaine  and 
Baudelaire  (the  latter  of  whom  he  seems  to  have  placed 
above  them  all),  at  a  time  when  Hugo  absorbed  tlie  attention 


58      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

of  South-American  youth.  The  loss  of  a  large  portion  of 
Silva's  poems  during  the  wreck  of  VAmerique  off  the  Co- 
lombian coast  in  the  year  1895  was  a  loss  to  literature  as 
well.  Among  the  manuscripts  thus  destroyed  was  a  col- 
lection of  Cuentos  Negros  (Black  Tales)  which,  according 
to  testimony,  were  little  known  outside  of  the  intimate 
circles  to  which  he  had  read  them;  there  were  also  various 
other  prose  works  as  well  as  almost  the  entire  Libros  de 
Versos.  To  the  natural  melancholy  of  the  young  poet  was 
added  one  stroke  of  misfortune  after  another.  A  few  days 
after  having  written  his  marvellous  bit  of  prose  De  Sobre- 
mesa  (Table  Talk),  in  which  he  seemed  to  breathe  out  his 
aristocratic  soul,  he  shot  himself. 

Miguel  de  Unamuno  has  summed  up  Silva's  life  in  three 
words:  "Sufrir,  sonar,  cantar."  Thus  succinctly  does 
he  epitomize  not  only  the  life  of  Silva,  but  of  a  Dario,  of  a 
Casal,  who  out  of  their  sufiTerings  spin  the  web  of  dreams 
and  distil  the  beauty  of  song.  In  his  Psicopatia  (again 
the  neurotic  note  of  the  age)  Silva,  expressing  the  futility 
of  philosophy,  has  diagnosed  his  own  case: 

Ese  senor  padece  un  mal  muy  raro, 
que  ataca  rara  vez  a  las  mujeres 
y  pocas  a  los  hombres  .  .  .  Hija  mia! 
Sufre  este  mal:  pensar  .  .  .  esa  es  la  causa 
de  su  grave  y  sutil  melancolia.  .  .  . 

That  is  Silva's  ailment,  expressed  with  an  ironic  humor 
more  characteristic  of  Gutierrez  Najera  than  of  Dario: 
"A  rare  disease  that  rarely  attacks  women  and  infrequently, 
men  .  .  .  Thought  .  .  .  that  is  the  cause  of  his  grave  and 
subtle  melancholy." 


THE  ''MODERMSTA"  RENON  ATION  59 

Silva,  in  a  sense,  is  the  eternal  child.  In  his  woes  the 
thoughts  of  rhildluuHl  arc  his  one  consolation.  He  has 
sung,  in  Infancia: 

hifanria,  valle  ameno, 
df  rahua  y  tie  Irestura  bendecida 
donde  es  suave  el  rayo 
del  sol  que  abraza  el  resto  de  la  vida. 
j  Como  es  de  santa  tu  innocencia  pure, 
Como  tus  breves  dichas  transitorias, 
Como  es  de  dulce  en  horas  de  amargura 
dirigir  al  pasado  la  mirada 
y  evocar  tus  meniorias! 

So,  too,  evoking  the  fairy  tales  of  childhood,  which 
Gutierrez  Najera  was  able  to  consider  in  so  poetically 
scientific  a  light,  he  finds  them  more  substantial  than  science 
and  philosophy: 

cuentos  mas  durables  que  las  convicciones 
de  graves  filosofos  y  sabias  escuelas, 
y  que  rodasteis  con  vuestras  ficciones 
las  cunas  doradas  de  las  bisabuelas. 

May  not  much  of  his  disappointment  with  love  and  life 
be  due  to  this  unending  childhood,  which  persisted  in  tlie 
spirit  even  after  it  had  departed  from  the  flesh?  Every- 
where the  haunting  note  resounds.  His  bride  (in  the  beau- 
tiful poem  Nupcial)  hears  death  as  well  as  hope  in  the 
music  that  plays  at  her  festivities.  His  Midnight  Dreams 
(bearing  the  English  title  in  the  original)  bring  him  visions 
of  hopes  and  joys  that  he  has  never  known.  Voices  from 
the  tomb  call  to  him, — voices  he  has  not  heard  for  he 
knows  not  how  long.     Often  it  grieves  him  that  the  dead 


60      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

should  be  so  soon  forgotten,  as  if  already  he  reckoned  him- 
self among  their  number  and  made  their  complaint  his 
own.  .  .  .  The  eternal  quest  is  futile,  he  feels;  he  suffers 
the  nostalgia  of  everlasting  darkness  even  as  the  moth  seeks 
the  light  that  once  gave  it  life,  but  now  destroys  it. 

In  a  poem  entitled ? he  asks  the 

stars  why,  if  they  live,  they  are  silent,  and  why,  if  they 
are  dead,  they  give  light.  He  despairs  alike  of  his  own 
art  {La  Voz  de  las  Cosas)  and  of  his  critics  {Un  Poema)  ; 
his  Lazarus,  four  days  after  resurrection,  wanders  amid  the 
tombs  in  solitary  grief,  envying  the  departed.  The  poet, 
in  all  he  has  written,  has  given  us  a  spiritual  autobiog- 
raphy which  renders  other  details  quite  superfluous. 

In  common  with  the  other  innovators,  Silva  strove  for 
metrical  freedom  and  the  untrammeled  expression  of  his 
personality.  He  was  born  into  surroundings  in  which  the 
routine  view  of  art  and  criticism  had  long  held  sway; 
against  this  his  artistic  nature  rebelled.  He  possessed,  in 
as  marked  a  degree  as  any  of  the  precursors,  a  sense  of 
melody  and  form  that  naturally  enough  astonished,  with 
its  literary  and  artistic  originality  and  irreverence,  the 
pundits  of  the  past. 

As  examples  of  technical  liberty,  we  may  select  the  sim- 
ple, affecting  Los  Maderos  de  San  Juan,  the  Luz  de  Luna, 
the  Dia  de  Defuntos  and  the  popular  Nocturnos.  Others 
may  view  in  such  pieces  as  these  a  technical  skill  worthy  of 
admiration  in  itself.  To  me  (and  I  confess  freely,  that  of 
the  various  modernist  precursors  Gutierrez  Najera  and 
Silva  are  my  favorite  poets)  the  metrical  element  is  an  in- 
dissoluble one.  It  may  be  convenient  for  critics  to  speak 
of  form  and  content;  art  knows  only  the  beautiful  whole. 


THE  "MODERNISTA"  RENOVATION  61 

The  first  of  the  poems  named  above  is  an  amplification 
of  a  nursery  rliyme, — oiu-  of  the  evoeatioiis  of  a  childhood 
that  the  poet  never  outgrew  eomph'tely.  The  changing 
metre  corresponds  to  a  definite  eliange  in  thought;  the  very 
rhythm,  with  its  occasional  abruptness,  conveys  the  rocking 
of  the  child  upon  the  grandmother's  weary  knees.  Child 
and  grandmother!  For,  to  Silva,  how  evanescent  is  the 
age  between!  Like  the  sw^aying  child,  so  his  poetry  rocks 
between  infancy  and  death.   .   .   . 

Both  Luz  de  Luna  and  Dia  de  Defuntos  are  characterized 
by  that  melancholy  mood  of  Silva's  in  which  he  comments 
upon  life's  forgetfulness  of  tlie  dead.  Here  again  the 
pulse  of  the  poem,  even  as  of  our  own  blood,  changes  its 
beat  with  the  various  emotions;  the  lines  are  nervous,  im- 
mediately responsive,  in  their  differing  lengths,  to  the 
poet's  fancy.  The  Dia  de  Defuntos,  suggested  by  Poe's 
The  Bells,  may  be  read  after  the  English  masterpiece  with- 
out experiencing  any  discordant  effect.  Through  the 
sounds  of  the 

.  .  .  campanas  planideras 
que  les  hablan  a  los  vivos 
de  los  muertos 

in  a  poem  that  avails  itself  of  a  striking  variety  of  plangent 
metres  he  communicates  his  dominant  pessimistic  mood. 
How  quickly  are  the  dead  forgotten  by  the  living!  And 
how  strikingly  Silva  uses  a  single  bell  that  resounds  above 
the  chorus  of  the  others, — the  bell  of  irony  and  mocking 
laughter,  which  rings  out  his  own  thoughts.  It  is  in  the 
Nocturnos  that  Silva's  metrical  contributions  may  best  be 
studied.     Here  we  have,  for  example,  free  metre,  based 


62      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

upon  a  rhythmic  unit  of  four  syllables,  as  in  the  opening 
of  the  third  Nocturne: 

Una  noche, 
una  noche  toda  llena  de  murmullos,  de  perfumes,  y  de  musicas  de 
alas; 

una  noche 
en  que  ardian  en  la  sombra  nupcial  y  hiimeda  las  luciernagas 
fantasticas.  .  .  . 

He  plays,  too,  with  typography,  seeking  to  obtain  effects 
of  shadow  by  arrangement  and  repetition  of  lines;  this, 
however,  is  not  an  essential,  element  in  verse  or  prose,  nor 
is  it  an  essential  part  of  Silva's  innovations. 

Every  true  poet  is  an  excellent  writer  of  prose,  wrote 
Dario  in  his  essay  upon  the  aristocratic  poet  Jean  Moreas. 
This  is  noticeably  true  in  the  case  of  the  modernistas,  old 
and  new, — if  modernists  may  ever  grow  old!  The  prose 
of  Silva  is  pregnant  with  subtle  rhythms;  it  glows  with  in- 
tensity, and  is  saturated  widi  that  same  bitterness,  that 
same  ceaseless  inquiry,  that  same  haunting  melancholy 
which  inform  his  poetry. 

Read  this  line  from  his  De  Sobremesa,  not  only  for  its 
insight  into  the  poet,  but  for  its  vehement  expression  of  in- 
cipient madness: 

"Un  cultivo  intelectual  emprendido  sin  metodo  y  con 
locas  pretensiones  al  universalismo,  un  cultivo  intelectual 
que  ha  venido  a  parar  en  la  falta  de  toda  fe,  en  la  burla 
de  toda  valla  humana,  en  un  ardiente  curiosidad  de  la 
mal,  en  el  deseo  de  hacer  todas  las  experiencies  de  la 
vida.  .  .  ."  This  is  the  very  pulse  of  scornful  renuncia- 
tion. De  Sobremesa  is  one  of  the  most  striking  pieces  of 
neurotic  self-revelation  in  modernist  letters.  t 


THE  "MODERNISTA"  RENOVATION  63 

"An  intellectual  cultivation  undertaken  without  method 
and  with  mad  pretensions  to  universalism, — an  intellectual 
cultivation  that  has  led  to  a  toniplcte  ahandonnient  of  faith, 
to  the  j'esting  scorn  of  all  human  efl'ort,  to  a  burning  cu- 
riosity of  evil,  to  the  desire  of  tasting  all  the  possible  expe- 
riences of  life.  ,  .  ."  Such  is  the  pass  to  which  Silva 
brought  iiimself,  face  to  face  with  lunacy,  which  said  to 
him,  "I  am  thine;  thou  art  mine;  I  am  madness."  And 
in  a  last  burst  of  self-expression  that  resolves  upon  a  chord 
of  self-rejection:  "Mad?  .  .  .  And  why  not?  Thus  died 
Baudelaire,  the  greatest  poet  of  the  last  fifty  years  for  all 
truly  lettered  folk;  thus  died  Maupassant.  .  .  .  Then  why 
should  you  not  die  thus,  poor  degenerate  who  abused  ev- 
erything, who  dreamed  of  ruling  over  art,  of  mastering 
science,  all  knowledge,  and  of  draining  all  the  glasses  into 
which  Life  pours  its  supreme  intoxication?"  And  thus 
died  Silva,  by  a  bullet  from  his  own  hand. 

Bv  a  strange  coincidence,  the  life  of  Baudelaire  was  so 
similar  to  that  of  tliis  great  Colombian  admirer,  that  An- 
tonio Gomez  Restrepo  (in  his  Pamaso  Colomhiano)  found 
it  possible  to  apply  to  Silva,  the  words  of  Andres  Suares 
indited  to  Baudelaire:  "He  was  fond  of  rare  dishes  and 
rare  books,  of  the  stars  of  the  Orient  and  of  old  wines,  of 
ultramodern  music  and  of  editions  that  were  impossible  to 
locate.  Everything  about  him  was  artistic:  his  hair,  of 
blackest  silk;  his  glance,  glittering  and  piercing;  his  fore- 
head and  his  neck  of  admirable  shape  and  feminine  white- 
ness; his  noble  acts.  He  seemed  to  be  a  Persian  or  an 
Arabian  prince.  At  thirty  he  was  ruined  completely:  he 
then  sank  into  the  bitter  sadness  of  lliose  who,  not  having 
>  been  born  into  poverty,  are  forced  to  compare  in  every  sen- 


64      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

sation  the  excellency  of  their  desires  and  the  ignominy  of 
reality.  As  a  voluptuary,  he  was  of  those  who  nourish  and 
caress  their  desires,  and  causing  them  to  grow  inordinately, 
not  only  lose  the  illusion  of  realilty,  but  reject  it.  The  de- 
sire of  such  as  these  lives  upon  dreams,  and  only  dreams 
content  them.  A  fearful  contentment,  which  exhausts  one 
more  than  orgies.  He  lived  only  upon  imagination,  and 
this  used  up  his  nerves  and  exhausted  his  strength.  In  him, 
the  flesh  was  cerebral." 

The  same  Gomez  Restrepo,  in  his  La  Literatura  Colom- 
biana  {Revue  Hispanique,  XLIII,  103,  pp.  185)  says  that 
if  Silva  had  lived  longer  he  would  probably  have  disputed 
with  Dario  the  scepter  of  modernist  poetry  not  only  in 
America  but  in  Spain. 

5.  Salvador  Diaz  Miron 

(1853-) 

Although  Diaz  Miron  is  not  generally  mentioned  as  a 
precursor  of  modernism,  for  more  reasons  than  one  he 
is  entitled  to  consideration  with  the  forerunners.  His  own. 
long  life  spans  the  beginnings,  the  hey-day,  and  the  later 
transformations  of  the  epoch;  his  intensely  personal  man- 
ner, particularly  that  of  the  earlier  poems  which  later,  in  a 
mistaken  fervor  of  perfection,  he  disowned,  affected  not 
only  the  Dario  of  Azul,  but  Chocano  of  the  proud  gesture 
and  the  sonorous,  bardic  strophes.  How  different  is  that 
early  Diaz  Miron,  however,  from  the  poet  of  Lascas, — 
that  collection  of  polished,  chiselled;  artfully  wrought 
marble  chips  in  which  the  exacting  artist  gathered  tl\e  few 
products  that  he  stamped  definitely  with  his  own  ap(    oval. 


THE  "MODERNISTA"  RENOVATION  63 

The  poet  of  Lascas  is  iu)l  lluil  writer  of  quatrains  whose 
verses  Dario  (in  a  well-known  sonnet  from  Azul)  com- 
pared to  a  four  yoked  ehariot  drawn  by  wild  eagles  who 
love  tlie  tempest  and  the  oeeaii.  Nor  did  this  "son  of  the 
New  World"  let  humanity  for  long  hear  the  pomp  of  his 
'iyrie  hymns  which  triumphantly  salute  liberty."  No; 
the  Diaz  Miron  of  this  style, — tlie  "fireater,"  as  he  has  been 
called  (for  did  not  his  mind,  in  the  words  of  the  younger 
poet,  have  craters  and  eject  lavas?) — underwent  a  change 
of  poetic  outlook;  his  mind  turned  to  the  rigor  of  harsh 
self-discipline;  it  was  no  longer  the  crater  of  a  volcano, 
but  the  atelier  of  an  Olympic  sculptor,  hewing  statues  from 
mountains  of  marble.   .   .   . 

The  life  of  the  poet  leads  us  to  such  varied  places  as 
prison  cells  (which,  it  would  seem,  form  part  of  the  neces- 
sary training  of  a  Spanish-American  writer),  the  tribune 
of  the  council  chamber,  where  his  fiery  oratory  wins  him 
new  admirers,  and  to  the  directorship  of  El  Imparcial 
(1913-14).  Prison,  politics,  press,  poetry, — the  four 
steeds  that  so  often  we  discover  guiding  the  rolling  chariot 
of  Spanish-American  writers. 

Perhaps  as  famous  a  poem  as  Diaz  Miron  ever  penned 
is  his  youthful  A  Gloria,  which  for  years  was  widely  known 
and  cherished  in  the  anthology  of  Spanish  America's  poetic 
heart.  And  little  wonder.  For  it  spoke  the  language  of 
defiant  self-assertion,  couched  in  the  flamboyant  quatrains 
that  Diaz  Miron  made  peculiarly  his  own.  Like  Dario 
after  him,  the  poet  in  his  early  efforts  sang  the  great  god 
Hugo, — Hugo,  the  perennial  fountain-head  of  so  many 
"new"  orientations  of  poesy,  whose  influence  is  so  potent 
«  ven  in  the  novel  of  today,  as  confessed  by  his  worshipper 


66      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

Blasco  Ibanez.  Not  the  Hugo  of  Les  Contemplations,  it 
has  been  pointed  out,  but  the  Hugo  of  Les  Chatiments, 
whom  Chocano  studied  to  good  advantage. 

Read  a  few  lines  from  A  Gloria;  listen,  and  see  if  you 
catch  more  than  a  strain  of  Chocano's  Blason,  and  his  other 
poems  of  arrogant  defiance. 

No  intentes  convencerme  de  torpeza 
Con  los  delirios  de  tu  mente  loca! 
Mi  razon  es  al  par  luz  y  firraeza, 
Firmeza  y  luz  como  el  cristal  de  roca! 

Semejante  al  nocturno  peregrine, 
Mi  esperanza  inmortal  no  mira  al  suelo. 
No  viendo  mas  que  sombra  en  mi  camino, 
Solo  contempla  el  esplendor  del  cielo! 

Erguido  bajo  el  golpe  en  la  porfia, 
Me  siento  superior  a  la  victoria. 
Tengo  fe  en  mi :  la  adversidad  podria 
Quitarme  el  triunfo,  pero  no  la  gloria! 

jDeja  que  me  persigan  los  abyectos! 
Quiero  atraer  la  envidia  aunque  me  abrume! 
La  flor  en  que  se  posen  los  insectos 
es  rica  de  matiz  y  de  perfume. 

jAlunArar  es  arder! — Estro  encendido 
Sera  el  fuego  voraz  que  me  consuma ! 
La  perla  brota  del  molusco  herido 
y  Venus  nace  de  la  amarga  espuma! 

Conformate,  mujer! — Hemos  venido 
A  este  valle  de  lagrimas  que  abate, 
Tu,  como  la  paloma,  para  el  nido, 
Y  yo,  como  el  leon,  para  el  combate. 


THE  "MODERNISTA"  RENOVATION  67 

It  h^s  been  said  that  all  of  the  early  Diaz  Miron  is  in 
this  poem.  Note  the  aptness  of  the  irnap;ery:  "My  reason 
is  at  once  light  ami  firnuiess,  firmness  and  light,  like  the 
rock  crystal!"  .  .  .  "There  are  plumages  that  cross  the 
swanij)  and  are  not  stained,"  he  proclaims  in  a  quatrain  not 
here  (pioted.  *'Sueh  j)lnmage  is  mine!"  Note,  too,  the 
strikingly  epigrammalie  character  of  the  utterances: 
■'Adversity  may  cheat  me  of  triumph,  but  not  of  glory!" 
"The  pearl  blossoms  from  the  wounded  mollusc,  and  Venus 
is  born  of  the  bitter  foam!"  Such  a  type  of  poetry  may 
lack  iJie  coherence  and  the  climax  of  higher  flights,  being  in 
reality  a  succession  of  inorganic,  if  inspiring,  utterances. 
Yet  there  is  the  ruddy  vitality  of  youth  in  its  veins,  with 
just  a  touch  of  Nietzscheism  in  the  final  quatrain. 

Urbina  has  given  us  an  excellent  personal  view  of  this 
solitary  figure  in  Hispano-American  letters.  "He  is  still 
alive,  expatriated,  ill,  sad, — this  man  whose  arrogant  youth 
has  resemblance  and  affinity  to  the  ancient  heroes,  in  the 
flight  of  his  passion  as  in  the  nobility  of  his  deeds.  An 
exceptional  being,  out  of  the  chivalric  legends,  gifted  with 
a  temperament  ever  ready  for  action  as  is  his  intelligence 
for  perception.  He  is  of  those  who  are  loved  and  feared. 
He  seems  an  artist  of  the  Renaissance.  He  could  endure 
comparison  with  the  Italian  cinquecentistas, — with  Leon- 
ardo for  the  variety  of  his  learning;  with  Benvenuto  for 
the  impulse  to  daring.  In  the  parliamentary  tribune  and 
the  political  harangue  he  revealed  his  tempestuous,  flashing 
eloquence;  when  in  the  council  chamber  he  raised  his  trem- 
ulous right  hand,  it  seemed  that,  like  the  Olympic  god,  he 
released  the  thunderbolt."  Not  only  Chocano  took  his  first 
inspiration  from  this  nervous,  impassioned  orator  of  the 


68      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

frail  body,  the  haughty  countenance,  the  dark  eyes  and 
the  flowing  mane.  The  Spaniard  Villaespesa,  too,  in  a 
recent  visit  to  Mexico,  confessed  that  he  received  his  initial 
poetic  impulses  from  the  author  of  A  Gloria. 

The  change  that  so  greatly  affected  Diaz  Miron's  poetic 
outlook  seems  to  have  affected  his  output  as  well.  His  new 
conception  of  technique  is  perhaps  as  rigorous  a  program 
as  any  poet  ever  devised — and  followed.  I  sometimes 
wonder  whether  non-Latins  can  really  appreciate  the  seem- 
ingly exaggerated  attention  paid  by  Spanish-American 
poets  to  the  matter  of  metric  structure.  Our  own  tradition 
is  so  much  freer,  so  rich  in  precept  and  example,  that  often 
the  Spanish  preoccupation  appears  overdone.  But  since 
we  have  not  been  brought  up  on  Academic  prescriptions, 
with  regular  places  assigned  to  accents,  caesuras  and  all 
the  other  high-sounding  trappings  that  would  embalm  ver- 
bal beauty,  we  are  prevented,  not  only  by  the  difference  in 
language,  but  also  that  in  tradition,  from  entering  inti- 
mately into  this  detail  of  the  poet's  task.  Diaz  Miron  now 
refuses,  for  example,  to  rhyme  two  adjectives,  shuns  articles 
in  favor  of  a  Latinized  phrase,  avoids  hiatus  and  in  general 
holds  up  to  his  poetry  a  most  difficult  conception  of  dis- 
sonance and  harmony. 

This  phase  of  his  labors,  partly  shown  in  tlie  remarkable 
collection  Lascas,  represents  the  opposite  of  such  a  poetic 
canon  of  spontaneity  as  we  have  noticed  in  Marti.  Diaz 
Miron,  indeed,  has  with  his  later  work  induced  comparison 
with  the  methods  of  Luis  de  Gongora.  His  preoccupation 
with  sculptural  perfection  and  an  impersonality  utterly  at 
variance  with  his  initial  verses,  ally  him  to  the  Parnassians. 
Yet,  since  somewhat  of  our  old  self  always  remains,  the 


THE  "MODERNISTA"  RENOVATION  69 

early  Diaz  Miroii  is  (lisccrnible  b(Miralli  the  "statuary 
tunic."  The  volcanic  lava  has  cooled,  but  one  may  divine 
its  cratcral  origin.  So,  for  example,  the  Eccc  Homo  in 
LascaSy  proclaims  a  poetic  art  that  recognizes  humanity's 
deeper  response  to  sorrow  than  to  joy,  and  an  intention  to 
sing  that  response  in  verses  which  shun  the  subtle  jongleur's 
intense,  crude  grace, — to  adjust  to  Irulli  his  calculated 
taste,  under  the  gloomy  brush  and  tlie  tragic  etching  needle. 

A  la  verdad  adjusto 
el  calculado  gusto 
bajo  el  pincel  adusto 
y  el  tragico  buril 

The  Epistola  Jocoseria  of  the  same  collection  sings  like- 
wise a  sort  of  ars  poetica  that  seeks  to  combine  grace  and 
power.     A  touch  of  the  old  personality  is  there: 

En  mi  el  cosmos  intima  senales 

Y  es  un  haz  de  impresiones  mentales. 

Para  mi,  por  virtud  de  objetivo, 
todo  existe  segun  lo  percibo. 

Y  el  tamiz  proporciona  elemento 
propio  y  lirico  al  gayo  talento, 

\  es  quien  pone  caracter  y  timbre, 
Novedad  y  valor  a  la  urdimbre. 

Our  impassioned  seeker  after  the  exact  expression  may, 
as  the  above  lines  show,  be  not  a  little  Symbolistic  as  well. 

"After  the  publication  of  Lascas,"  writes  Jose  Juan  Tab- 
lada,  one  of  the  foremost  Mexican  propagandists  of  the 
French  spirit  in  Hispano-American  letters,  " — that  marvel- 
lous book  whose  perfection  of  form  has  neither  precedent 


70      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

nor  continuation  in  Castilian,  the  poet  has  continued  his 
glorious  pilgrimage  upon  other  paths."  Such  superlative 
judgments  are  common  in  Hispano-American  criticism; 
they  are  indicative  not  only  .of  a  healthy  enthusiasm  for 
beautiful  self-expression,  but  of  a  passionate  nature  that 
has  received  a  more  conventional  but  deeper  literary  train- 
ing than  our  own  average  students  and  critics.  With  the 
later  work  of  Diaz  Miron  we  are  not  here  concerned;  his 
general  line  of  development  has  been  indicated,  however; 
his  chastened  technique,  his  new  aesthetics,  his  aversion 
to  appearing  in  the  periodicals,  his  proud  isolation,  have  all 
conspired  to  obscure  his  importance.  As  a  precursor  he 
was  a  potent  influence  upon  the  young  Dario;  as  the  sur- 
vivor of  the  great  modernist  he  was  hailed  by  more  than 
one  as  his  legitimate  successor. 

Such  are  some  of  the  modernist  influences  that  the  chief 
poetic  figure — Dario — breathed  as  he  approached  adult- 
hood. As  we  shall  see  in  the  study  devoted  to  him,  he  was 
by  nature  suited  to  drink  in  the  inspiration  of  the  age, — an 
intellectual  turmoil  that  for  all  its  artificiality  possessed  a 
core  of  sincerity;  that  for  all  its  exoticism,  its  neo-Hellen- 
ism,  its  eighteenth-century-ism,  possessed  a  core  of  contem- 
poraneity;  that  for  all  its  early  Teutonic  inspiration,  (which 
filtered  in  dirough  Becquer  and  translations  from  Heine, 
and  likewise  through  the  Germanic  philosophic  backgrounds 
of  the  Gallic  innovators)  and  its  fulsome  worship  of  French 
art,  possessed  a  core  of  Hispanism. 

Dario's  great  historic  significance  consists  in  his  having 
absorbed  a  multitude  of  conflicting  elements  and  unified 
them  in  labors  that  reveal  a  steady  progress  toward  self- 
conquest  and  self-proclamation.     The  history  of  modem-     < 


THE  "MODERNISTA"  RENOVATION  71 

ism,  with  his  appearance,  becomes  largely  a  matter  of  his 
biography.  As  rapidly  as  new  influences  appear,  he  as- 
similates them,  insj)iro(I  and  inspiring  in  turn. 

Before  approathing  the  salient  personalities  of  the 
studies  that  follow,  let  us  glance  at  some  later  phases  of 
modernism,  which  has  really  not  so  much  run  its  course  as 
altered,  restrained  and  finnly  redirected  it. 

Ill 

LATER    PHASES    OF    MODERNISM 

1.  New  Orientations 

By  the  year  1898  the  times  were  ripe  for  the  introduc- 
tion of  the  modernist  movement  into  Spain;  the  war  with 
the  United  States  and  its  disastrous  outcome  had  produced 
among  certain  of  the  younger  writers  a  spirit  of  pessimism 
that  assumed  the  extremes  of  dissatisfaction  with  the  native 
land.  They,  too,  like  their  brothers  across  the  Atlantic, 
looked  to  outside  suggestion,  and  although  there  was  a 
possible  taint  of  denationalization  in  their  views  (nor  is 
this  always  a  taint)  their  attitude  had  the  effect  of  bringing 
Spain  into  closer  touch  with  Europe  and  the  rest  of  the 
world.  Even  so  prejudiced  an  enemy  of  modernism  as 
Cejador  y  Frauca  admits  that  its  effects,  in  Spain,  were 
upon  the  whole  beneficial.  This  dominantly  French  influ- 
ence entered  Spain  f rom  Spaniji  America  rather  than  from 
across  the  borders  directly;  history  thus  reversed  itself,  for 
early  French  influences  entered  Spanish  America  through 
Spain.  The  views  of  Cejador  y  Frauca  upon  modernism 
itself,  which  are  representative  of  a  large  body  of  Spanish 


72      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

thought,  are  rather  preceptive,  to  say  the  least.  To  him 
the  France  that  produced  it  is  a  decadent,  positivist,  effem- 
inate France;  a  France  eager  for  novelty  for  novelty's 
sake;  he  holds  Pamassianism  up  to  scorn  because  it  sacri- 
fices matter  to  manner;  he  gives  a  horrible  picture  of  the 
Decadent  artist  as  a  sort  of  nervous  wreck  whose  vari- 
ous senses  have  become  telescoped  into  a  mass  of  sensory 
confusions;  modernist  literature  appears  to  him  not  only 
effeminate,  but  erotomaniac,  falsely  mystic,  psychiatric  and 
what  not  else,  and  he  approaches  the  limits  of  the  ridiculous 
by  quoting  Marcel  Reja,  who  in  his  L'Art  Chez  les  Foas  (a 
study  of  art  among  children  and  lunatics)  discovers  that 
mad  art  coincides  with  the  art  of  the  decadents!  Symbol- 
ism becomes  a  mixture  of  romanticism  and  gongorism;  a 
decadence  of  decadence.  Modernism,  which  grows  worse 
as  the  critic  writes  on,  at  last  sinks  to  the  level  of  the  mere 
desire  to  attract.  "This  and  nothing  more,  is  modernism." 
I  believe  this  is  a  most  erroneous  manner  of  considering 
any  movement.  The  epoch  is  an  historical  fact;  it  was  not 
merely  willed  into  existence;  it  produced  extravagances 
that  literature  has  known  before  modernism  and  that  it  will 
know  long  after.  The  amount  of  bad  writing  produced  by 
any  movement  is  always  far  in  excess  of  the  great,  for  the 
simple  reason  that  writers,  being  human,  perform  but  av- 
erage work  no  matter  what  banner  they  labor  under.  A 
movement  that  produces  a  Dario  in  Spanish  America  and 
helps  to  shape  a  Baroja  or  a  Benavente,  a  Jimenez  or  a 
Rueda  in  tlie  old  Spain,  His  performed  its  mission  and  may 
well  claim  its  due  on  that  score  alone.  The  same  Cejador 
y  Frauca,  in  condemning  the  exoticism  of  the  modernists 
(which  owes  not  a  little  to  a  similar  phenomenon  among 


THE  "MODERNISTA"  RENOVATION  73 

the  romanticists,  and  goes  to  show  llial  we  retain  more  than 
a  little  of  all  things  thai  we  reject),  forgets  that  this  may  be, 
IS  well  as  a  sign  of  neurotic  unrest  or  affeetation,  a  hroad- 
ening  of  the  human  spirit,  an  interpenetration  oi  races  too 
long  separated  by  the  barriers  of  language  and  that  preju- 
dice which  attaches  to  the  unknown  and  the  misunderstood. 
From  the  very  confusion  of  the  early  stages  of  modernism 
a  more  homogenous  world-view  was  destined  to  arise.  Dis- 
solution, reformation,  reintegration — this  has  been  the 
course  of  the  movement  in  Spanish  America,  where,  in  its 
later  phases,  as  we  shall  soon  see,  tlie  movement  turned  to 
a  closer  consideration  of  contemporary  affairs,  to  a  sense 
of  continental  solidarity,  and  a  broad  Americanism  which 
may  not  be  the  final  step.  The  early  exoticism  of  the  mod- 
ernists is  sure,  sooner  or  later,  to  be  transformed  by  this 
growing  Americanism  into  a  genuine  universality.  There 
are  distinct  promises  of  this  in  Santos  Chocano,^^  who  re- 
fuses to  be  called  merely  the  poet  of  America,  a  title  which 
was  held  to  be  unmerited  by  Dario.  Dario's  glory,  how- 
ever, consists,  among  otlier  things,  in  the  fact  that  he  was 
too  vast  to  be  included  by  such  a  conception,  even  as  was 
our  own  so  different  poet,  Whitman.  And  when  a  critic 
exclaims  '"The  great  stupidity  of  Ruben  Dario,  who  might 
have  been  a  great  American  poet,  and  reduced  himself  to 
the  position  of  one  more  in  the  cortege  of  Parisian 
metecos.  ..."  I  feel  strongly  that  the  stupidity  was  not 
all  on  Dario's  part,  and  that  surely  no  man  is  prophet  in 
his  own  language! 

The   very   fact   that   so   many   cosmopolitan   influences 
played  upon  the  modernists  of  this  continent  and  abroad  re- 

13  See  the  special  chapter  devoted  to  him. 


74      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

veals  the  interpenetrating  spirit  of  the  age.  From  foreign 
lands  came  the  labors  of  d'Annunzio,  Dickens,  Poe,  Whit- 
man, Tolstoi,  Ibsen,  Brandes,  Nietzsche,  not  to  speak  of  the 
roll  of  Frenchmen.  And  Valle-Inclan  approaches  a  sub- 
tle truth  when  he  declares  that  a  renaissance  is  simply  "the 
fecundation  of  national  thought  by  foreign  thought."  I 
can  understand,  even  when  I  cannot  sympathize  widi,  laws 
against  immigration.  But  the  application  of  laws  against 
literary  immigration  on  the  grounds  of  a  national  literary 
exclusivism  is  a  retrogressive  force  in  letters.  We  have 
spoken  too  much  about  nationalist  art,  forgetting  that  though 
the  roots  may  lie  in  nationality  and  personality,  the  results, 
independent  of  school  and  nation,  should  overleap  bound- 
aries and  enter  the  universal  heart.  Such  results  have 
been  attained  by  the  modernists,  in  common  with  the  great 
writers  of  all  schools  and  of  no  schools;  such  results,  if 
justification  of  a  historic  fact  were  necessary,  justify  mod- 
ernism. 

The  new  path  of  modernism  tends  in  Spanish  America  to 
abandon  early  extravagances  and  to  produce  a  genuinely 
continental  product.  Chocano's  glorification  of  Alma 
America  (the  title  of  one  of  his  most  significant  collections, 
and  a  beautiful  variation  of  the  phrase  alma  mater),  awoke 
a  legitimate  continental  pride  that  had  been  dormant,  rather 
than  absent.  Nervo's  well-known  Epitalamio  to  Alfonso 
XIII  is  looked  upon  as  having  proclaimed  a  definite  turn- 
ing point  in  the  history  of  the  modernist  movement,  by  the 
assertion  of  the  former  colonies'  spiritual  service  to  the 
Spanish  king.  Read  by  the  author  in  the  Madrid  Ateneo, 
on  April  28,  1906,  it  told  the  youthful  king  tliat 


THE  "MODERNISTA"  RENOVATION  75 

Sois  rey 
aiin,  eii  cicrlo  inodo,  dc  Anirrira,  rnmo  antes. 
Rey,  mieiilras  (jiie  el  idioma  diviuo  de  ("ervaiiles 
melifujue  los  labios  y  caiite  en  las  canciones 
de  diez  y  oelio  Republicas  y  eincuenta  mi  Hones 
de  seres;  niienlras  rija  las  almas  y  la  mano 
el  ideal  auslero  liel  honor  castellano.** 

Nervo  (1870-1919)  carried  on  the  potent  French  influ- 
ences tliat  have  revivified  Spanish  poetry  on  bodi  sides  of 
the  ocean,  without  becoming  a  victim  to  the  less  artistic 
forms  of  that  renovation;  like  tlie  new  spirits  of  Spanish 
America,  he  had  reached  a  stage  where  he  recognized  no 
arbitrary  schools  or  rules  in  art;  he  had  found  himself  and 
expressed  his  personality  in  poems  diat  glow  with  a  strange, 
new  beauty.  Through  a  dazzling  succession  of  literary 
labors  he  advanced  to  a  point  where  he  could  write 

Yo  no  se  nada  de  literatura 
Ni  de  vocales  atonicas  o  tonicas, 
ni  de  ritmos,  medidas  o  cesura, 
ni  de  escuelas  (comadres  antagonicas) , 
ni  de  malabarismos  de  estructura, 
de  sistoles  o  diastoles  eufonicas.  .  .  . 

A  splendid  independence,  a  wise  ignorance,  that  may  be 
purchased  only  at  the  price  of  so  much  slavery  to  the  quest 
of  beauty,  so  much  study  of  its  elusive  structure!  "I  know 
nothing  of  literature,  nor  of  accented  or  unaccented  vowels, 
nor  of  rhythms.  .  .  ."  Nothing, — except  what  only  the 
wise  know  how  to  forget!     And  what  a  deep  remark  of 

^*  The  spirit  of  Nervo 's  verses  is  plainly  present  in  Dario's  much  earlier 
poem  Al  Rey  Oscar  (in  Cantos  de  Vida  y  Esperanza)  and  in  Cliocano's 
still  earlier  Canto  del  Siglo. 


76      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

Dario's  it  was,  when,  in  referring  to  Nervo's  skill,  he  men- 
tioned a  "modernism — let  us  call  it  such,  that  benefited 
only  those  who  deserved  it!" 

"I  was  born,"  Nervo  has  told  us,  "in  Tepic,  a  small  city 
on  the  Pacific  coast  (Mexico),  on  the  27th  of  August,  1870. 
My  real  name  should  have  been  Ruiz  de  Nervo,  but  my 
father^  shortened  it.  His  first  name  was  Amado,  and 
he  gave  it  to  me.  Whereupon  I  became  Amado  Nervo,  and 
what  appeared  to  be  a  pseudonym — which  was  what  many 
in  America  believed  to  be  the  case — and  what  was  in  any 
event  a  rare  combination,  was  of  no  little  worth  to  my  lit- 
erary fortunes.  Who  knows  what  might  have  been  my  fate 
with  the  ancestral  appellation  of  Ruiz  de  Nervo.,  or  if  I 
had  been  called  Perez  y  Perez  (that  name  is,  among  the 
Spaniards,  as  common  as  Smith  in  English).  I  began  to 
write  when  I  was  a  mere  child,  and  on  a  certain  occasion 
my  brother  discovered  the  verses  that  I  had  furtively  writ- 
ten; he  read  them  to  the  family  gathered  about  the  dining 
table.  I  escaped  to  my  comer.  My  father  frowned.  .  .  . 
For  the  rest,  my  mother,  too,  wrote  verses,  likewise  fur- 
tively. Her  sex  and  her  great  griefs  spared  her  in  time, 
and  she  died  without  knowing  that  she  possessed  talent. 
...  I  have  never  had,  nor  have  I,  any  particular  tend- 
ency. I  write  as  I  please.  ...  I  support  only  one  school, 
that  of  my  deep  and  eternal  sincerity.  I  have  written 
innumerable  bad  things  in  prose  and  verse;  and  some  good 
ones;  but  I  know  which  is  which.  If  I  had  been  wealthy, 
I  would  have  written  only  the  good  ones,  and  in  that  case 
perhaps  there  would  be  today  only  a  little  volume  of  my 
writings — a  book  of  conscientious  art,  free  and  proud.     It 


THE  "MODERN ISTA"  RENOVATION  77 

was  not  tt>  be!  I  was  compelled  to  make  a  living  in  a 
country  where  almost  nobody  reads  books  and  where  the 
only  form  of  diffusion  was  the  periodical.  Of  all  the 
things  that  grieve  me,  this  is  the  greatest:  the  small,  precious 
little  book  that  my  life  did  not  permit  me  to  write — the 
free  and  only  book." 

Nervo  was  early  destined  to  follow  the  career  of  the 
churchman,  Ver\'  soon,  however,  he  broke  away  from  the 
surroundings,  although  the  influence  remained  with  him  for 
years  afterward,  becoming  transformed  into  a  penetrating 
mysticism.  His  struggles  to  achieve  his  ambitions  were 
many  and  di&couraging;  the  pattern  of  his  career,  which 
included  travels  in  both  hemispheres,  was  a  checkered  one 
indeed.  From  literary  success  in  Mexico  City  he  attained 
to  reputation  in  Paris  and  Italy;  he  flitted  from  journalism 
to  translating,  poetr\',  tales,  education,  to  diplomacy,  and 
along  the  path  of  his  wanderings  he  culled  the  flower  of  a 
variegated  poesy.  Profoundly  aff"ected  by  French  influ- 
ence, he  did  not  permit  it  to  rob  him  of  his  poetic  self;  he 
was  possessed  of  an  inquisitive  mind  that  now  shook  him 
in  his  religious  beliefs,  introducing  the  canker-worm  of 
doubt;  now  enticed  him  into  bold  conceptions  that  ranged 
freely  in  space  and  time,  dwelling  in  dreams  of  superhu- 
manity;  yet,  as  one  of  his  noted  fellow-poets,  Urbina,  has 
put  it,  "his  autumn  is  filled  with  roses."  Much  of  his 
poetry  possesses  an  ineff'able  tenderness,  especially  such  as 
appears  in  the  first  part  of  his  collection  called  En  Voz 
Baja  (In  a  Soft  Voice).  Not  only  are  the  thoughts  such 
as  may  be  spoken  only  in  a  soft,  sweet  voice,  but  the  very 
hush  of  passionate  confiding,  the  soft  breath  of  airy  wishes, 


78      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

the  deep  sense  of  holy  silences,  the  poignant,  haunting 
memories  of  a  past  suddenly  evoked,  rise  like  incense  from 
its  pages. 

Nervo,  in  some  of  his  aspects,  possesses  a  lyric  introspec- 
tion that  seems,  by  some  fourth-dimensional  gift  of  thought, 
to  penetrate  into  lives  we  only  half  dream  of  living;  he 
feels  the  feverish  hurly-burly  of  modem  life,  yet  is  a  man 
of  his  times  and  has  faith  in  his  age.  His  comparisons  are 
not  only  things  of  beauty,  but  conveyers  of  beauty  as  well. 
He  is  not  the  empty,  if  beautiful  urn  of  so  many  Parnas- 
sians; he  can  fashion  beautiful  urns  and  fill  them  with 
intoxicating  wine. 

For  an  example  of  Nervo's  poetry — and  it  is  hardly 
necessary  to  add  that  an  example  or  two  cannot  hope  even 
to  suggest  the  innumerable  beauties  of  his  varied  produc- 
tions— we  may  choose  a  notable  and  a  noble  poem  which 
is  of  especial  timeliness  today,  when  the  air  is  so  peopled 
with  modern  Columbuses  en  route  to  new  discoveries. 
Pdjaro  Milagroso  (Miraculous  Bird)  was  written  in  1910, 
after  a  flight  in  an  aeroplane.  To  Nervo's  soaring  imagina- 
tion (the  unintentional  pun  possesses  substance!),  the  aero- 
plane becomes  a  colossal  white  bird  that  realizes  the  dream 
of  generations,  reconquering  for  man,  the  fallen  angel, 
the  wings  that  he  lost  in  his  struggle  with  the  gods.  I  quote 
a  few  lines  from  the  original  to  give  an  idea  of  its  metric 
and  stanzaic  structure: 

Pajaro  milagroso,  colosal  ave  blanca 
que  realizas  el  sueno  de  las  generaciones; 
tu  que  reconquistaste  para  el  angel  caido 
las  alas  que  perdiera  luchando  con  los  dioses; 


THE  "MODERNISTA"  RENOVATION  79 

pjijaro  milaproso,  colosiil  ave  blanca, 

jamas  mis  ojos,  hartos  de  avizorar  el  orbe, 

se  abriert)n  mas  que  aliora  para  abarcar  lu  vuelo, 

mojado  por  el  llaiiU)  de  las  consolaciones. 

At  last,  cries  the  poet,  man  has  grown  wings. 

"Fathers  who  sought  this  anxiously,  and  died  without 
beholding  it — jiocts  who  for  centuries  dreamed  of  such 
gifts — lamentable  Icaruses  who  provoked  laughter, — today, 
over  your  tombs,  tliere  flies,  buzzing,  the  miraculous  bird  of 
the  snowy  wings  that  crystallizes  the  dream  of  the  ages. 
And  your  dead  eyes  open  to  behold  it,  and  your  dry  bones 
are  garlanded  with  flowers!  Oh,  God!  I,  who,  tired  of 
the  sad  and  frivolous  journey  of  life,  longed  for  eternal 
night,  today  cry  to  Thee,  'More  life,  oh  Lord,  more  life — 
tliat  I  may  soar  like  an  eagle  over  all  vanities  and  beau- 
ties, winging  above  them  in  vast  flight!'  We  poets  have 
now  a  new  Pegasus.  And  what  a  Pegasus,  friends,  does 
Jove  return  to  us!  Let  a  divine  exultation  flood  our 
spirits,  and  a  Te  Deum  Laudamus  burst  from  our  lips,  and 
let  old  melancholies  perish,  strangled  by  virile  hands! 
Let  us  live!  Let  us  live!  Nations,  in  vain  do  you  wish 
to  make  a  weapon  out  of  that  which  is  a  sign  of  peace 
among  peoples!  Stain  not  the  celestial  bird  with  missions 
of  war;  it  thrusts  tliem  aside;  it  was  born  for  the  message 
of  friendship  and  sows  kisses  of  peace  among  men!" 

Four  years  later  Nervo's  buoyant  hopes  were  for  a  mo- 
ment dashed  to  earth  by  the  outbreak  of  the  world  war. 
Only  a  short  while  ago  the  poet  returned  to  the  subject,  to 
his  poems  and  to  his  hopes.  He  had  not  lost  faith  in  the 
miraculous  bird;  rather  it  had  been  strengthened.     After 


80      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

the  war  he  could  behold  visions  of  the  nocturnal  sky  illum- 
ined by  signs  upon  vast  wings,  bearing  the  legends:  "Paris 
to  New  York,"  "London  to  Mexico,"  "Madrid  to  Buenos 
Aires."  .  .  .  "The  aeroplane,"  he  said,  in  the  same  article, 
"will  give  back  to  us  the  lap  of  night,  the  majesty  of  the 
forgotten  stars  .  .  .  and  it  is  already  well  known  that  the 
stars  are  pale  and  ardent  instructors  that  teach  us  many 
things.^"  .  .  .  They  civilized  the  Chaldeans,  the  Egyptians 
and  the  Greeks,  the  ]^/ahuas  and  the  Mayas.  They  have 
given  back  to  many  men,  in  the  clear  nights  of  the  trenches, 
the  feeling  of  eternity.  ...  In  them  is  our  hope  of  sal- 
vation." It  takes  a  Spanish-American  to  be  a  poet  even  in 
his  magazine  contributions! 

Miss  Blackwell  has  made  versions  of  some  of  Nervo's 
love  poems ;  two  of  the  best  known  follow.  Just  before  his 
death,  a  charming  collection  of  his  latest  work  was  issued  in 
Buenos  Aires  under  the  title  El  Estanque  de  los  Lotos  (The 
Lotus  Pond). 

TO  LEONORA 

Black  as  the  wing  of  Mystery  thine  hair, 
Dark  as  a  "Never"  where  deep  sorrow  lies, 
As  a  farewell,  or  as  the  words  "Who  knows?" 
Yet  is  there  something  darker  still — thine  eyes! 

Two  musing  wizards  are  those  eyes  of  thine; 
Sphinxes  asleep  in  shadow  in  the  South; 
Two  beautiful  enigmas,  wondrous  fair; 
Yet  is  there  something  fairer  still — thy  mouth ! 

Thy  mouth!     Ah,  yes!     Thy  mouth,  divinely  formed 
For  love's  expression  and  to  be  love's  goal, 

^^  Nervo  was  a  student  of  astronomy. 


THE  "MODEHMSTA"  RENOVATION  };i 

Shaped  for  love's  warm  comiiiiuiion — ihv  young  mouth! 
Yet  is  there  something  better  siill     thy  soul. 

Thy  soul,  retiring,  silent,  hrimmiiig  o'er 
With  pity  and  with  tenderness.  I  deem 
Deep  as  the  ocean,  the  unsounded  sea; 
Yet  is  there  sometliing  deeper  still — thy  dream! 

EVOCATION 

From  the  deep  mystery  of  the  past  I  called  her, 
Where  now  a  shade  among  the  shades  is  she, 
A  ghost  'mid  ghosts — and  at  my  call  she  hastened, 
Pushing  the  centuries  aside  for  me. 

The  Laws  of  Time,  astounded,  followed  after; 

The  Spirit  of  the  Graves  with  mournful  cry 

Called  to  her,  "Stop!"     Like  unseen  hooks,  the  Epochs 

Grasped  her  rich,  faded  robes  when  she  went  by. 

But  all  in  vain!     She  came,  with  red  hair  floating, 
That  red  hair  fragrant  of  eternity; 
With  wings  loose  hanging,  clad  like  a  chimera, 
That  strange  queen,  following  my  will,  drew  nigh. 

I  said  to  her,  "Do  you  recall  your  promise 
Made  in  the  year  One  Thousand,  to  my  bliss?" 
"Remember,  I  am  but  a  shade!" 

"I  know  it." 
"And  I  was  mad." 

"You  promised  me  a  kiss!" 

"My  kiss  has  by  the  chill  of  death  been  frozen; 
Long  has  my  life  been  hid  in  Time's  eclipse." 
"Queens  do  not  break  the  word  they  once  have  given!" 
'Twas  thus  I  answered.     And  she  kissed  my  lips. 

By  no  means  has  there  been  loss  of  personality  among 


82      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

the  poets,  but  rather  an  increase  that  is  mirrored  by  the 
tendency  of  the  Republics  to  proclaim  a  literary  autonomy 
not  inconsistent  with  continental  aspirations.  Such  son- 
nets as  that  by  the  most  popular  of  living  Mexican  poets, 
Enrique  Gonzalez  Martinez,  in  which  the  swan  of  Dario 
(overemphasized  as  the  poet's  heraldic  bird,  owing  to 
Rodo's  brilliant  analysis  of  the  Prosas  Prof  anas),  is  sen- 
tenced to  have  its  neck  wrung  and  be  replaced  by  the  con- 
templative owl,  indicate  a  more  sober  inspiration,  yet  one 
none  the  less  modern.  "Wring  the  neck  of  the  swan  with 
deceitful  plumage,"  he  counsels  in  a  notable  sonnet.  "It 
merely  parades  its  grace,  but  hears  not  the  soul  of  things 
nor  the  voice  of  the  landscape.  Flee  from  every  form  and 
from  every  tongue  that  does  not  harmonize  with  the  latent 
rhythm  of  profound  life;  adore  life  intensely,  and  let  it 
understand  your  homage.  Look  upon  the  wise  owl,  how 
it  spreads  its  wings  from  Olympus  leaving  the  lap  of  Pallas, 
and  rests  its  taciturn  flight  upon  that  tree.  ...  It  has  not 
the  grace  of  the  swan,  but  its  restless  eye,  peering  into  the 
dark,  interprets  the  mysterious  book  of  nocturnal  silence." 

Was  it  not  Verlaine  who  began  all  this  neck-twisting,  in 
his  Art  Poetique?     Do  you  recall  the  first  line  of  the  sixth  I 
quatrain?     "Prends  I'eloquence  et  tors-lui  son  cou!" 

In  the  reaction  of  Gonzalez  Martinez  against  the  swans 
of  Dario  may  be  discerned  a  double  effect  of  the  Mexican's 
milieu  and  his  personality.  This  poet  comes  at  a  time 
when  Mexico's  need  is  for  stem  self-discipline,  solid  cul- 
ture and  widespread  education,  rather  than  for  effete  aes- 
theticism  and  ultra  refinement.  The  verses  that  he  wrote 
as  a  child  were  probably  of  the  same  character  as  is  pro- 
duced by  most  gifted  children;  his  training  as  a  physician, 


THE  "MODERNISTA"  RENOVATION  83 

however,  with  the  necessary  scientific  application  to  con- 
crete phenomena,  nuist  have  had  not  a  little  to  do  with  his 
substitution  ol  the  owl  for  the  swan.  Social  need  and  a 
scientific  discipline  aptly  merged  with  a  poetic  pantheism 
furnished  the  background  for  the  physician-poet's  new  or- 
ientation of  modernism. 

He  was  born  in  1871  in  Guadalajara,  the  capital  of  the 
state  of  Jalisco,  where  he  attended  the  Seminary.  In  1893 
he  had  won  his  physician's  degree  and  was  made  an  asso- 
ciate professor  of  physiology.  For  fifteen  years  he  fol- 
lowed his  calling  in  the  State  of  Sinaloa,  where  he  pub- 
lished his  first  four  books.  For  a  time  he  edited  Arte  with 
Sixto  Osuna.  The  year  1911  saw  him  in  Mexico  City; 
here  he  founded  the  short-lived  Argos  (1912),  and  con- 
tributed editorially  to  El  Iniparcial;  now,  too,  began  his 
public  career  as  President  of  the  Ateneo  (1912),  Undersec- 
retary of  Instruction  and  Fine  Arts  for  a  short  period 
(1913),  professor  of  French  literature  in  the  Escuela  de 
Altos  Estudios,  head  of  the  literature  and  grammar  depart- 
ment, and  professor  of  Mexican  Literature  in  the  Escuela 
Preparatoria. 

A  host  of  contradictory  influences  have  played  upon  the 
idol  of  young  Mexico's  poetry  lovers.  Lamartine,  Poe, 
Baudelaire,  Verlaine  (the  ubiquitous  Verlaine!),  He- 
redia,  Francis  Jammes,  Samain.  Yet  here  we  find  no  mor- 
bidity, no  dandyism,  no  ultra-refinement.  Wliere  other 
poets  feel  the  passing  nature  of  joy  and  cry  out,  admon- 
ishing mortals  to  "seize  the  day"  ere  it  fly,  Gonzalet  Mar- 
tinez ("a  melancholy  optimist"  de  Icaza  has  termed  him, 
in  a  paradoxical  phrase  that  seems  to  sum  up  modern  opti- 
mism) feels  rather  tiie  transitory  character  of  grief.     He 


84      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

is  what  I  may  call  an  intellectual  pantheist, — his  absorp- 
tion of  nature  is  not  tlie  ingenuous  immersion  of  the  prim- 
itive soul  into  the  sea  of  sights  and  sounds  about  him;  it 
is  the  pantheism  of  a  modem  intellect  that  gazes  at  feeling 
through  the  glasses  of  reason,  and  having  looked,  throws  the 
glasses  away.  ...  In  all  things,  as  he  tells  us  in  the  beau- 
tiful poem  Busca  En  Todas  Las  Cosas,  from  his  collection 
Los  Senderos  Ocultos,  he  seeks  a  soul  and  a  hidden  mean- 
ing. The  modernist  poets  are  prodigal  with  poems  upon 
their  artistic  creeds  and  practises.  In  this  series  of  melo- 
dious quatrains  Gonzalez  Martinez  enlightens  us  upon  his 
poetic  outlook: 

Busca  en  todas  las  cosas  un  alma  y  un  sentido 
Oculto;  no  te  cifies  a  la  aparencia  vana; 
Husmes,  sigue  el  rastro  de  la  verdad  arcana 
Escudrinante  el  ojo  y  aguzado  el  oido. 

Ama  todo  lo  gracil  de  la  vida,  la  calma 
De  la  flor  que  se  mece,  el  color,  el  paisaje; 
Ya  sabras  poco  a  poco  descifrar  su  lenguaje.  .  .  . 
Oh,  divino  coloquio  de  las  cosas  y  el  alma! 

Hay  en  todo  los  seres  una  blanda  sonrisa, 
Un  dolor  inefable  6  un  misterio  sombrio 
^Sabes  tu  si  son  lagrimas  las  gotas  de  rocio? 
Sabes  tu  que  secretes  va  cantando  la  brisa? 

That  is  the  secret  of  the  poet's  charm.  His  pantheism  is  as 
much  wonder  as  worship;  as  much  inquiry  as  implicit  be- 
lief. As  he  has  told  us  in  La  Plegaria  de  la  Noche  en  la 
Selva:  "Now  I  know  it,  now  I  have  seen  it  with  my  rest- 
less eyes,  oh  infinite  mystery  of  the  nocturnal  shadows! 
To  my  engrossed  spirit  you  have  shown  the  urn  in  which 


THE  "MODERNISTA"  RENOVATION  85 

with  jealous  care  you  hoard  your  deepest  secrets."  If 
poets  must  have  heraldic  birds,  if  Poe  must  have  his  raven, 
Daric)  his  swan,  Verlaiiie  his  hieTatie  cat,  Gonzale/  MarliiKV, 
has  his  owLaiul  night  is  his  amhient, — not  the  Tristissintn 
Nox  of  a  Gutierrez  Najera,  but  that  night  which  unto  night 
showeth  knowledge. 

To  Miss  Blackwell  I  am  indcl)ted  for  versions  of  some 
characteristic  poems  by  Gonzalez  Martinez.  These  reveal 
the  poet's  mood  of  communion  as  well  as  his  peculiarly 
contemporary  pantheism.  The  first  selection  is  one  of  the 
most  popular  of  modern  Mexican  poems  and  almost  at  once 
found  its  way  into  the  antliologies: 

LIKE  BROTHER  AND  SISTER 

Like  brother  with  dear  sister,  hand  in  hand, 
We  walk  abroad  and  wander  through  the  land. 

The  meadow's  peace  is  flooded  full  tonight 

Of  white  and  radiant  moonlight,  shining  bright. 

So  fair  night's  landscape  'nealh  the  moon's  clear  beam, 

Though  it  is  real,  it  seems  to  be  a  dream. 

Suddenly,  from  a  corner  of  the  way, 

We  hear  a  song.     It  seems  a  strange  bird's  lay, 

Ne'er  heard  before,  with  mystic  meaning  rife, 

Song  of  another  world,  another  life. 

"Oh,  do  you  hear?"  you  ask,  and  fix  on  me 

Eyes  full  of  questions,  dark  with  mystery. 

So  deep  is  night's  sweet  quiet  that  enrings  them, 

We  hear  our  two  hearts  beating,  quick  and  free. 

"Fear  not!"  I  answer.     "Songs  by  night  there  be 

That  we  may  hear,  but  never  know  who  sings  them." 

Like  brother  with  dear  sister,  hand  in  hand, 
We  walk  abroad  and  roam  across  the  land. 


86      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

Kissed  by  the  breeze  of  night  that  wanders  wide, 

The  waters  of  the  neighboring  pool  delight, 

And  bathed  within  the  waves  a  star  has  birth, 

A  swan  its  neck  outstretches,  calm  and  slow, 

Like  a  white  serpent  'neath  the  moon's  pale  glow, 

That  from  an  alabaster  egg  comes  forth. 

While  gazing  on  the  water  silently. 

You  feel  as  'twere  a  flitting  butterfly 

Grazing  your  neck — the  thrill  of  some  desire 

That  passes  like  a  wave — the  sudden  fire 

And  shiver,  the  contraction  light  and  fine 

Of  a  warm  kiss,  as  if  it  might  be  mine. 

Lifting  to  me  a  face  of  timid  fear 

You  murmur,  trembling,  "Did  you  kiss  me,  dear?" 

Your  small  hand  presses  mine.     Then,  murmuring  low, 

"Ah,  know  you  not?"     I  whisper  in  your  ear, 

"Who  gives  those  kisses  you  will  never  know. 

Nor  even  if  they  be  real  kisses,  dear!" 

Like  brother  with  dear  sister,  hand  in  hand, 
We  walk  abroad  and  wander  through  the  land. 

In  giddy  faintness,  'mid  the  mystic  night, 

Your  face  you  lean  upon  my  breast,  and  feel 

A  burning  teardrop,  falling  from  above. 

In  silence  o'er  your  languid  forehead  steal. 

Your  dreamy  eyes  you  fasten  on  me,  sighing. 

And  ask  me  very  gently,  "Are  you  crying?" 

"Mine  eyes  are  dry.     Look  in  their  depths  and  see! 

But  in  the  fields  when  darkness  overspreads  them. 

Remember  there  are  tears  that  fall  by  night," 

I  say,  "of  which  we  ne'er  shall  know  who  sheds  them!" 

The  two  poems  that  follow  are  a  delicate  variation  of  a 
similar  mood ;  note  the  attitude  of  wonder  in  tlie  first,  as  well 
as  the  sense  of  repose  in  both. 


THE  "MODERNISTA"  RENOVATION  87 

A  HIDDEN  SPRING 

Vi'itliiii  tlir  shadowy  l)i)wl  of  mossy  valleys, 

Afar  from  noise,  you  come  forth  timidly, 

Sinj^ing  a  strange  and  secret  melody. 

With  silvery  dropping,  where  your  clear  stream  sallies. 

No  wanton  fauns  in  brutal  hunting  bold 

Have  niuiKliod  you,  or  heanl  your  voice  that  sings; 

You  know  not  even  of  what  far-off  springs 

The  unseen  veins  created  you  of  old. 

May  rural  gods  preserve  your  lonely  peace! 
Still  may  tiie  siiihing  leaves,  the  sobbing  breeze, 
Down  tlie  low  murmurs  of  your  scanty  flow! 
Forgive  me  that  my  momentary  glance 
Of  vour  unknow'n  existence  learned  by  chance; 
And  hence,  willi  noiseless  footsteps,  let  me  go! 

TO  A  STONE  BY  THE  WAYSIDE 

0  mossy  stone,  thou  pillow  small  and  hard 
Wliere  my  brow  rested,  'neath  the  starlight's  gleam, 
Where,  as  my  weak  flesh  slept,  my  life  soared  up! 

1  give  thee  thanks  for  giving  me  a  dream. 

The  gray  grass  gleamed  like  silver  fair,  bedewed 
By  a  fresh-fallen  shower  with  many  a  tear. 
A  bird  upon  the  bough  his  music  sighed 
Beneath  the  twilight,  hueless,  thin  and  clear. 

Yearning,  I  followed  evening's  concert  sweet. 
The  shining  ladder  by  a  star-beam  given 
I  climbed,  with  eyes  fast  closed  but  heart  awake, 
And  ascended  to  the  heights  of  heaven. 

Like  Jacob,  there  the  marvel  I  beheld. 

That  in  a  dream  prophetic  glowed  and  burned. 


88      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

In  the  brief  space  for  which  my  sleep  endured, 
I  sailed  a  sea,  and  to  the  shore  returned. 

0  mossy  stone,  thou  pillow  small  and  hard! 
Thou  didst  receive,  beneath  the  starlight's  gleam. 
My  aimless  longing,  my  sad  weariness; 

1  give  thee  thanks  for  giving  me  a  dream. 

His  soul  is  quiveringly  responsive  to  nature's  every  mood, 
which  is  his  own. 

Sometimes  a  leaf  that  flutters  in  the  air. 
Torn  from  the  treetops  by  the  breezes'  strife, 
A  weeping  of  clear  waters  flowing  by, 
A  nightingale's  rich  song,  disturb  my  life. 

And  soft,  sweet  languors,  ecstasies  supreme. 
Timid  and  far  away,  come  back  to  me. 
That  star  and  I,  we  know  each  other  well; 
Brothers  to  me  are  yonder  flower  and  tree. 

My  spirit,  entering  into  grief's  abyss. 
Dives  to  the  farthest  bottom,  without  fear. 
To  me  'tis  like  a  deep,  mysterious  book; 
Letter  by  letter  I  can  read  it  clear. 

A  subtle  atmosphere,  a  mournful  breeze. 
Make  my  tears  flow  in  silence,  running  free, 
And  I  am  like  a  note  of  that  sad  song 
Chanted  by  all  things,  whatsoe'er  they  be. 

Delirious  fancies  in  a  throng  press  near — 
Hallucination,  or  insanity? — 
The  lilies'  souls  to  me  their  kisses  give. 
The  passing  clouds  all  greet  me,  floating  by. 

Divine  Communion!  for  a  fleeting  space 
My  senses  waken  to  a  sharpness  rare. 


y^\  ^         j^^  "MODERNISTA"  RENOVATION  91 

\ 

There  I  shut  up  my  dreams,  beneath  the  sky — 
Poor  waiuloriug  caravan  that  haunts  my  breast. 
CIducI  ^irl,  lik.(."  some  old  iin)unlaiirs  lioary  crest, 
That  far,  strange  stronghold  greets  the  gazer's  eye. 

My  dreams  wait  there  till  1  shall  close  the  door. 
They  will  behold  tne  from  my  home  of  yore 
Cross  the  still  halls,  to  be  their  guest  for  aye. 
Latching  tlie  doors,  the  bolts  I  shall  let  fall, 
And  in  the  moat  that  girds  the  castle  wall 
Some  night  shall  prouilly  cast  the  keys  away. 

''The  thing  which  hath  been,  it  is  that  which  shall  be; 
and  that  which  is  done  is  that  which  shall  be  done;  and 
there  is  no  new  thing  under  the  sun."  Thus  spake  the 
Preacher.  But  then,  was  it  not  Paul  in  his  second  epistle 
to  the  Corintliians  who  said  tliat  ""old  things  are  passed 
away;  behold,  all  things  are  become  new"?  Between  the 
two  statements  might  be  placed  all  the  battles  that  are  for- 
ever being  waged  around  the  newest  of  the  new  standards 
in  art.  "Newness,"  after  all,  is  a  matter  of  spirit  rather 
than  of  chronology.  The  unimaginative  poetaster  of  today 
who  shrieks  his  little  theories  and  seeks  to  exemplify  them 
in  chopped  lines  that  are  neither  literary  fish  nor  flesh,  is 
ancient  even  as  he  writes,  while  the  great  authors  of  all  time 
are  freshly  new  because  true  to  something  more  durable 
than  a  love  of  novelty  for  novelty's  sake.  Nothing  ages  so 
(juickly  as  novelty.  This,  however,  is  no  reason  for  con- 
demning an  entire  movement,  for  the  new  spirit  is  always 
right,  unless  progress  is  to  resolve  into  classic  stagnation. 
A  Remy  de  Gourmont  may  say  that  "the  new  is  always  good 
o^cause  it  is  new,"  and  a  Villergas  that  "the  good  is  not 
of  V  and  the  new  is  not  good";  both,  in  their  excessive  ad- 


92      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

herence  to  a  school  rather  than  to  an  idea,  over-emphasize 
the  point;  above  all  the  rivalries  of  school  and  precept 
(often  merely  verbal)  there  is  a  kinship  among  all  true 
poets  and  creators.  That  modern  view  which  tends  to 
break  away  from  schools,  that  inherent  unity  between  the 
"new"  and  the  "old,"  is  deeply  felt  and  effectively  ex- 
pressed by  Gonzalez  Martinez  in  his  sonnet  The  Poets,  To- 
morrow. .  .  .  ,wherein  he  sings  the  same  eternal  question- 
ing under  different  forms. 

Tomorrow  the  poets  will  sing  a  divine  verse  that  we  of  today 
cannot  achieve;  new  constellations  will  reveal,  with  a  new  trem- 
bling, a  different  destiny  to  their  restless  souls.  Tomorrow  the 
poets  will  follow  their  raad,  absorbed  in  a  new  and  strange 
blossoming,  and  on  hearing  our  song,  will  cast  to  the  winds  our 
outworn  illusion.  And  all  will  be  useless,  and  all  will  be  vain; 
the  task  will  remain  forever — the  same  secret  and  the  same 
darkness  within  the  heart.  And  before  the  eternal  shadow  that 
rises  and  falls  they  will  pick  up  from  the  dust  the  abandoned 
lyre  and  sing  with  it  our  selfsame  song. 

Extremes  meet.  In  such  a  beautiful  sonnet  as  this  is  in 
the  original,  it  seems  that  the  new  and  the  old  join  in  a 
golden  circle.  Great  art  is  neither  old  nor  new;  it  is 
ageless.^^ 

2.  "Literary  Americanism" 

The  growing  national  literary  consciousness  of  the  Span- 

i*"'  A  fuller  treatment  of  modernism  should  include  such  widely  admired 
spirits  as  Leopoldo  Lugones  and  Leopoldo  Diaz  (Argentina).  Guillermo 
Valencia  (Colombia),  Ricardo  Jaimes  Freyre  (Bolivia),  and  Julio  Herrera 
y  Reissig  (Uruguay)  among  the  poets,  as  well  as  Francisco  Garcia  Calderon 
(Peru)  in  whom  many  see  the  logical  continuator  of  Rodo,  and  Manuel 
Diaz  Rodriguez  (Venezuela),  a  novelist  and  essayist  of  outstanding  merit. 
I  shall  deal  with  these  and  others  in  a  forthcoming  volume. 


THE  "MOUERNISTA"  RENOVATION  9^ 

ish-American  republics,  which  early  appeared,  may  be 
shown  by  two  extracts  from  Mexican  writers;  the  atlituile 
is  important  as  leading  up  to  tlie  natural  evolution  of  a 
contiiKMital  consciousness,  now  strongly  evident  in  the  labors 
of  a  Blanco-Fombona,  a  Garcia  Calderon,  a  Rodo. 

Says  Justo  Sierra,  the  noted  Mexican,  in  his  study  upon 
Manuel  Gutierrez  Najera:  ''No  people,  engendered  by  an- 
other in  the  plenitude  of  its  culture,  and  to  whom  there 
have  been  perforce  transmitted  language,  customs  and  re- 
ligion, has  ever  been  able  to  create  an  intellectual  or  liler- 
ar\'  personality  togetlier  with  its  political  personality;  this 
has  been,  whenever  it  occurred,  the  slow  work  of  time  and 
circumstance.  To  tell  us  American  sons  of  Spain  that  our 
rational  literature  has  not  yet  appeared  hardly  smacks 
of  good  criticism.  Does  the  illustrious  Academician 
(Sierra  is  replying  to  the  reproach  of  Menendez  y  Pelayo 
directed  to  the  new  Mexican  poets  for  their  intense  devotion 
to  later  French  literature)  believe  that  the  history  of  our 
literature  does  not  reveal  an  evolution  toward  a  certain  char- 
acteristic form, — one  which  singles  the  Mexican  group  out 
from  all  those  who  speak  Spanish?  Yes,  there  has  indeed 
been  an  evolution,  and  assimilation  was  necessary  to  that 
evolution;  at  first,  imitation  without  selection;  then,  imita- 
tion by  selecting,  and  reproducing  the  model;  and  this  is 
what  is  called  assimilation,  which  is  what  we  have  gone 
through.  And  whom  could  we  imitate?  The  Spanish 
pseudo-classicism  of  the  beginnings  of  the  (nineteenth) 
century?  That  was  an  imitation  of  the  French.  The 
Spanish  Romanticism  of  the  second  third  of  the  century? 
That,  too,  was  imitation  of  the  French.  Nevertheless,  we 
imitated  them;  Quintano  and  Gallegos,  the  Duque  de  Rivas 


94      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

and   Garcia   Gutierrez,   Espronceda   and   Zorrilla, — these 
were  our  father's  masters." 

This  line  of  reasoning  has  been  further  developed  by 
another  Mexican,  in  a  recent  book  dedicated  to  the  author 
of  the  lines  just  quoted. ^^ 

From  the  very  beginnings  of  his  investigations  into  Mex- 
ican letters,  the  poet  Urbina  tells  us,  he  was  assailed  by  the 
old  plaint  that  Mexican  literature,  and  in  general  all  His- 
pano-American  literary  production,  was  but  a  reflexion  of 
Peninsular  letters,  and  was  as  yet  unable  to  sustain  itself; 
that  they  were  late  in  development,  vague  in  physiognomy, 
and  being  incapable  of  creation,  had  recourse  to  imitation, 
following  the  changes  of  literary  style  in  Spain,  becoming  a 
shadow  of  that  body, — the  echo  of  that  voice.  He  does  not 
deny  the  element  of  truth  in  this  old  notion;  "the  Spanish 
language  is  the  sole  form  that  has  given  us,  and  will  give,  a 
literary  personality  in  the  universe  of  ideas";  to  speak 
Spanish  is,  in  a  certain  manner,  to  think  and  feel  in  Spanish 
moulds.  Yet  the  very  idea  of  transplantation  connotes 
modification,  circumstantial  alteration,  variation  from  the 
primal  model;  he  sees  that  the  mixture  of  the  natives  and  the 
conquistador  has  produced  a  Mexican  type;  anthropological 
investigation  shows  that  the  bodily  structure  of  the  Mexican 
diff'ers  from  the  Spanish  type  as  much  as  from  that  of  the 
primitive  American.  "Physiologically  we  are  neither  one 
nor  the  other;  we  are  a  well  differentiated  edinic  type,  par- 
taking of  the  nature  of  both  progenitory  races.  And  one 
and  the  other  strive  to  coexist,  to  survive  in  our  organism." 
Undoubtedly,  is  Urbina's  conclusion,  there  has  been  a  psy- 
chological change  commensurate  with  the  physiological, — 

^7  La    Vida    Literaria    de    Mexico.    Luis    G.    Urbina.     Madrid.     1917. 


THE  "MODERNISTA"  RENOVATION  05 

a  change  to  he  notod  not  only  in  literature  (for  nature  does 
not  recognize  our  classifications  of  human  activity)  hut  in 
sueli  pursuits  as  architecture  and  its  fluid  sister,  music. 
Mexico's  particular  contribution  in  the  spiritual  world  of 
Spanish  speech  is  a  certain  all-pervading  melancholy. 
"To  the  Sancho-Panzan  jollity  and  the  Quixotic  delirium 
there  is  added  in  our  hearts  the  sadness  of  the  Indian,  the 
ancestral  submissiveness  of  the  subject,  tlie  gentleness  of 
the  aborigine.  And  if  we  are  Mexicans  in  life,  we  are 
Mexicans  in  speech,  in  dreams  and  in  song." 

The  continental  aspirations  known  by  the  name  Amer- 
ican i^m  (since  the  tenn  America  to  Spanish  Americans  de- 
notes only  tlieir  portion  of  the  western  hemisphere)  are 
more  or  less  bound  up  (as  is  the  poetry  of  the  politico- 
modernist  writing)  with  a  fear  of  the  United  States  as 
possible  aggressor.  There  is  no  advantage  in  blinking  the 
fact  that  while  our  attitude  has  been  one  of  indifference, 
the  Spanish-American  position  has  on  the  whole  been  hos- 
tile. Spanish  America,  judging  from  its  literary  repre- 
sentatives, looks  upon  the  United  States  as  inferior  to  itself 
in  culture,  and  has  preferred  to  model  itself  upon  France. 
At  best  (always  speaking  generally)  we  are  in  their  eyes 
as  yet  too  engrossed  in  material  ambitions  to  give  attention 
to  spiritual  considerations;  at  worst,  we  are  an  intriguing 
nation  tliat  despoiled  Mexico  of  Texas  and  California,  de- 
spoiled Spain  of  Cuba,  despoiled  Colombia  of  Panama,^* 
and  who  now,  under  the  shield  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine  and 

^*Prof.  J.  D.  M.  Ford  of  Harvard,  in  his  recent  Main  Currents  of  Span- 
ish Literature    (chapter  on  "Spanish-American   Literature")    properly  indi- 
cates  that   not    our    nation,    but  certain    politicians,    are   here   responsible. 
Unfortunately,  the  political  and  economic  interests  they  represent  are  still 
)  powerful. 


96      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

an  alleged  Pan-Americanism,  cherish  imperialistic  designs 
upon  the  entire  southern  continent.  It  is  unnecessary  to 
dwell  upon  these  matters  in  a  book  of  primarily  literary 
appeal,  except  that  Spanish-American  letters  are  so  deeply 
tinged  with  the  political  (and  even  economic)  hue  that  these 
opinions  are  certain  to  appear  in  some  of  the  best  poems 
that  have  been  written  in  Spanish  on  this  side  of  the  At- 
lantic. To  be  sure,  there  is  a  tendency  to  modify  such  an 
extreme  view;  it  would  be  saying  too  much  to  assert  that 
it  is  making  great  headway  as  yet.  Not  only  this,  but  our 
neighbor  critics  of  the  south  recognize  in  the  new  Hispano- 
American  literary  and  cultural  movement  a  force  for  gen- 
eral progress;  their  proposed  literar}^  continental  solidarity  ; 
is  but  a  phase  of  the  politico-economic  unity  to  which  more 
than  one  of  their  leaders  aspire. 

The  general  trend  of  the  all-American  movement  is  in 
the  first  place  eclectic  in  nature ;  that  is  an  inevitable  result 
of  the  age-spirit, — the  one  possible  position  for  creators  of 
strong  personality  plunged  into  the  whirlpool  of  kaleido- 
scopic modernity.  The  artist,  whetlier  he  believe  it  or  not, 
is  eclectic  .from  the  very  nature  of  that  selection  which  lies 
at  the  bottom  of  art.  Self-made  men  and  self-made  liter- 
atures are  alike  contradictions  in  terms;  therein  lies  the 
fallacy  of  "schools"  in  art,  as  of  the  narrow  conception 
of  "nationalism"  in  literature  and  music,  for  example. 
Modernism,  which  in  its  restrictive  sense  has  passed  into 
history,  still  persists  in  its  effects;  even  as  it  proceeded  from 
antagonistic  elements  like  Parnassianism  and  Symbolism, 
it  has  produced  a  fusion  of  the  best  in  Classicism  and  Ro- 
manticism. The  new  writers  reserve  the  privilege  (and 
exercise  it!)  of  absorbing  all  the  "isms"  that  float  in  the 


THE  "MODERNISTA"  RENOVATION  97 

literary  amhicnl  and  turning  tluMii  to  advantage  for  an 
autonomous  product.  Such  is  "literary  Americanism" 
that  is  at  present  in  its  early  stages.  The  purely  national, 
while  by  nt)  means  owrlookeil,  is  relegated  to  a  secondary 
position;  and  here,  not  even  critics  who  insist  upon  the  na- 
tional note  in  all  literary  products  may  with  validity  object 
to  the  larger  vision  that  seeks  to  merge  llie  various  republics 
into  a  eonunon  continental  voice.  For  a  common  history, 
a  eonunon  languge,  a  common  problem  and  common  aspira- 
tions naturally  seek  a  common  art. 

It  has  been  questioned  whether  the  term  literature  may 
be  properly  applied  to  die  letters  of  Spanish  America.  It 
may  be  noted  in  passing  that  Coester  does  not  call  his  book 
a  history  of  Spanish-American  literature,  but  a  literary 
history  of  Spanish  America.  He  seems  to  have  adopted 
the  view  of  Bartolome  Mitre,  the  famous  Argentine  poet, 
historian,  and  ex-President  of  his  countiy,  who,  when  some 
years  ago  a  professor  desired  to  initiate  a  course  in  Spanish- 
American  literature,  opposed  tlie  plan  on  the  grounds  that 
such  a  thing  did  not  exist.  The  position  of  Mitre  (similar 
to  tlie  one  Sierra  combated)  was  that  literature  is  some- 
thing more  than  a  collection  of  books, — that  the  volumes 
written  by  Spanish  Americans,  though  all  in  tlie  same 
tongue,  lacked  logical  coherence  and  tlie  evidence  of  evolu- 
tion toward  a  definite  goal.  He  admitted,  however,  that 
their  ''literary  productions  might  be  considered,  not  as 
models,  but  as  facts,  classified  as  the  expression  of  their 
social  life  during  three  periods,  the  colonial  epoch,  the 
struggle  for  freedom,  and  the  independent  existence  of  the 
social  republics."  To  some  it  would  seem  that  this  state- 
ment approaches  very  near  to  self -refutation ;  there  is  cer- 


98      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

tainly  logic,  if  not  unity  or  coherence,  to  Spanish- American 
letters,  and  there  is  just  as  certainly  evolution;  as  to  whether 
that  evolution  tends  toward  a  definite  goal  is  another  matter, 
for  literary  evolution  need  not  be  conscious,  and  least  of  all, 
self-conscious.  Even  this  definite  goal,  however,  seems  to 
have  appeared  with  what  may  be  termed  the  post-modern- 
ist group,  in  their  aspirations  to  intellectual  continental 
unity,  under  the  inspiration  of  a  broader  concept  of  union 
derived  from  Bolivar's  audacious,  unfulfilled  dream. 

It  is  interesting  to  compare  with  Mitre's  position  that  of 
the  recently  deceased  Jose  Verissimo,  one  of  the  foremost 
Brazilian  critics, — a  man  of  broad  views,  wide  reading 
(how  often  the  one  seems  to  grow  from  the  other!)  and  in- 
corruptible fearlessness  of  expression.  In  regard  to  the 
letters  of  his  native  country  Verissimo  expressed  doubts 
similar  to  those  of  Mitre.  "I  do  not  know,"  he  writes,  in 
his  essay  0  Que  Falta  A  Nossa  Literatura}^  "whether  the 
existence  of  an  entirely  independent  literature  is  possible 
without  an  entirely  independent  language."  In  this  sense 
Verissimo  denies  the  existence  of  an  Austrian  literature, 
as  well  of  a  Swiss  or  Belgian.  He  finds  that  Brazilian 
letters  lack  perfect  continuity,  cohesion,  the  unity  of  great 
literatures,  chiefly  because  at  first  they  depended  upon  Por- 
tugal, then  Europe  (particularly  France)  and  only  lastly 

1"  Estudos  de  Literatura  Brasileira.  Vol.  II.  Cf.  however,  the  speech 
delivered  before  the  Brazilian  Academy  of  Letters  by  Joaquim  Nabuco. 
"The  truth  is  that,  although  tliey  speak  the  same  language,  Portugal  and 
Brazil  will  have,  in  the  future,  literary  destinies  as  profoundly  distinct  as 
their  national  destinies.  .  .  .  The  formation  of  the  Academy  of  Letters  is 
an  affirmation  of  the  fact  that,  in  literature  as  in  politics,  we  are  a  nation 
with  a  destiny  and  a  character  of  its  own — a  nation  that  can  be  directed 
only  by  itself,  developing  its  originality  through  its  own  resources  and  wish- 
ing only  that  glory  which  can  come  from  its  own  genius." 


THE  "MODERN ISTA"  RENOVATION  99 

referred  to  Brazil.  In  such  a  sense,  too,  it  would  be  possi- 
ble to  clc'tiy  (or,  at  least,  it  would  have  once  been  possible) 
the  existence  of  a  North  American  as  distinguished  from  an 
English  literature.  Yet  despite  the  subtle  psychic  bonds 
that  link  identity  of  speech  to  similarity  of  thought,  the 
environment  (which  helps  to  shape  pronunciation  as  well  as 
the  vocabulary  and  the  language  itself)  is,  from  the  stand- 
point of  literature,  little  removed  from  language  as  a  de- 
termining factor.  Who  would  pretend,  on  the  basis  of  lin- 
guistic similarity,  to  say  that  there  is  no  United  States  liter- 
ature as  distinguished  from  English  literature?  Is  it  not 
national  life,  as  well  as  national  language,  that  creates  lit- 
erature, especially  in  the  broader  sense  as  used  by  both 
Mitre  and  Verissimo?  Time  here,  as  elsewhere,  plays  a 
leading  role,  creating  new  languages  out  of  old,  new  liter- 
atures out  of  old,  even  new  worlds  out  of  old.  And  al- 
though Remy  de  Gourmont's  characterization  of  Spanish- 
American  speech  as  "neo-Spanish"  is  rash,  it  recognizes 
the  innovating  power  inherent  in  a  change  of  environment 
and  outlook;  perhaps  he  spoke  the  word  too  soon  rather 
than  too  thoughtlessly."" 

After  all,  the  question  as  to  whether  the  word  literature 

20  In  this  connection,  witli  reference  to  the  transformations  English  has 
undergone  in  the  United  States,  it  is  worth  wliile  to  point  out  an  exceed- 
ingly useful  and  vivacious  volume  entitled  The  American  Language,  by 
Henry  L.  Mencken,  New  York,  1919.  Mr.  Mencken  is  a  sober  thinker,  for 
all  his  occasional  levity,  and  is  one  of  the  few  stimulating  critics  writing 
in  our  countrv-  today.  He  is  very  much  alive  to  the  changes  going  on  daily 
in  the  structure,  pronunciation  and  vocabulary  of  the  English  tongue  as 
spoken  (and  even  written)  in  this  land,  and  has  in  his  own  book  suggested 
more  than  one  path  that  our  more  academic  spirits  would  do  well  to  follow. 
There  i«  something  incongruous  about  the  eagerness  with  which  we  study. 
for  example,  the  evolution  of  the  Romance  tongues  out  of  Vulgar  Latin, 
neglecting  similar  phenomena  in  our  ver)'  surroundings. 


100      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

may  be  applied  to  the  literary  products  of  Spanish  and  Por- 
tuguese America  is  largely  academic;  few  readers,  when 
roused  by  the  strophes  of  some  modem  Tyrtaeus  or  en- 
tranced by  the  sheer  musical  beauty  of  a  Guiterrez  Najera, 
a  Julian  del  Casal,  an  Amado  Nervo,  or  a  Gonzalez 
Martinez,  stop  to  ask  themselves  whether  they  are  reading 
part  of  a  well-defined  literature  or  not;  the  query  is  philo- 
sophical rather  than  literary. 

Yet  if  the  term  literature,  in  the  philosophical  sense,  be 
denied  to  the  past  productions  of  Spanish  Americans,  the 
very  reasons  for  that  denial  seem  to  be  disappearing;  for 
none  could  ask  a  clearer  statement  of  conscious  purpose 
than  comes  from  spokesmen  of  literary  Americanism  today. 
That  literary  Americanism  is  an  artistic  precursor  of  a 
political  unity.  "If  this  unity  is  impossible  in  political 
affairs,"  says  F.  Garcia  Godoy  in  his  group  of  essays  en- 
titled "Americanismo  Literario,"  "let  us  labor  to  impart  a 
common  orientation  to  what  is  worth  more  and  is  m^ore 
durable  than  the  political:  the  harmonic,  coherent  cultural 
vibration  of  peoples  identified  by  blood,  by  speech  and  by 
history." 

The  conditions  of  Mitre  are  thus  well  on  the  road  to  ful- 
fillment, and  the  vast  dream  of  Bolivar  is  bom  anew  in  the 
cradle  of  art. 


CHAPTER  II 
RUBEN  DARI'O 

(1867-1916) 

The  life  of  Ruben  Dario  itself,  quite  apart  from  the 
poems  which  flowered  out  of  it,  reads  with  all  the  interest  of 
a  fictive  account.  In  his  own  day  he  became,  to  more  than 
one  admirer,  a  god  with  a  legend  all  his  own.  He  is  with 
little  doubt,  botli  as  person  and  as  artistic  creator,  one  of 
tlie  most  attractive  figures  in  modern  poetry.  Perhaps 
such  adulators  as  Vargas  Vila  have  done  him  as  much  harm 
as  good;  he  may  not  have  been,  as  was  asserted  during  his 
lifetime,  the  greatest  poet  that  ever  used  the  Castilian 
tongue.  Such  worship,  however,  is  significant;  the  man 
impressed  his  personality  upon  the  writers  and  readers  of 
two  continents;  Tie  was  a  servitor  as  well  as  a  master  of 
beauty;  he  has  written  works  of  dazzling  technical  perfec- 
tion and  of  penetrating  vision;  he  is  the  outstanding  repre- 
sentative of  modernism  in  poetry;  he  is  a  chiseler  of 
luminous,  glittering  prose  rich  alike  in  imagery,  melody 
and  substance.  He  is  not  merely  a  Spanish-American  poet, 
nor  a  Castilian  poet;  he  is  of  the  consecrated  few  who  be- 
long to  no  nation  because  they  belong  to  all. 

I  believe  that  many  Spaniards,  on  both  sides  of  tlie  At- 
lantic, have  stressed  Dario's  technical  perfection  and  inno- 
vating significance  at  the  expense  of  his  essential  humanity. 
I  believe  lliat  despite  his  aristocratic  search  after  flawless 

101 


'■'l.C^.:^  ^TU1)IES  J^?' -SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITER.\TURE 

form,  despite  his  hatred  of  the  crowd,  despite  his  intellect- 
ual sybaritism,  he  was  as  human  in  a  great  part  of  his  poetry 
as  in  his  life.  This  wanderer  sought  to  distil  beauty  from 
joy  and  sorrow,  and  at  the  bottom  of  this  beauty  the  joy, 
the  sorrow,  the  vain  questioning,  the  doubt,  the  vacillations 
of  the  age  are  vibrant.  There  is  another  Dario,  I  know, — 
the  Dario  of  the  marquis's  hands,  of  tlie  pastels  a  la  Wat- 
teau,  of  the  insubstantial  symbolism  wafted  to  the  reader 
upon  winged  words, — the  Dario  that  had  the  weakness 
for  vain  display,  for  the  anodyne  of  drink,  for  creature  com- 
forts. Yet  is  it  another  Dario,  or  the  same?  In  our  crea- 
tions of  beauty  we  transform  ourselves  as  well  as  life.  And 
has  not  a  very  wise  Frenchman  said  that  we  differ  mostly 
from  ourselves?  .  .   . 

At  the  root  of  Dario's  work  as  a  whole  lies  agitated,  mul- 
tifarious life;  without  a  knowledge  of  that  life  we  may  ap- 
preciate the  beauty  of  his  productions,  but  we  miss  much  of 
their  humanity.  And  without  taking  sides  with  Art  for 
Art's  sake  or  Art  for  Heart's  Sake,  it  is  easy  to  understand 
that  beauty  shorn  of  its  human  aspect  is  only  half  beautiful. 

Dario  has  left  us  a  personal  account  of  his  career,  written 
four  years  before  his  death;  it  is  not  a  complete  account, — 
there  are  intentional  omissions  and  strange  caprices  of 
memory,  yet  by  collating  his  own  record  with  that  of  his 
contemporaries  it  is  possible  to  arrive  at  a  fairly  complete 
knowledge  of  tlie  man's  career. 


The  poet's  personal  account  (La  Vida  de  Ruben  Dario, 
Escrita  Por  El  Mismo)  is  on  the  whole  a  book  of  engaging 
candor,  revealing  the  man  behind  the  poet;  Dario  puts  on 


RIIBEN  DARIO  10,^ 

no  airs,  he  assumes  no  role  of  an  inspired  prophet,  nor  does 
he,  on  the  other  hand,  itn[)ai:t  to  his  frankness  a  suspicion 
of  paradiiiiz;  pose,  of  sensational  eonfession.  He  is  aware 
of  his  faults,  but  takes  them  lor  granted  and  wastes  no  time 
in  futile  repentanee  or  ostentatious  "peccavis."  He  is 
generous  in  his  appraisal  of  others,  and  charitable  to  those 
who  have  souglit  to  do  him  liarm.  He  displays  a  deep 
sense  of  humor,  which,  like  most  deep  humor,  has  overtones 
of  sorrow.  His  prose  is  simple,  unpretentious,  conversa- 
tional, yet  melodious  and  rich  in  colorful  words  and  happy 
phrases.  It  is  not  the  prose  of  an  Azul  or  a  Los  Raros,  yet 
it  is  well  matehtHl  to  its  direct  purpose.  Here,  as  else- 
where, we  come  upon  a  spirit  that  is  surely  cosmopolitan, 
with  a  touch  of  the  exotic,  yet  more  than  these,  restless  and 
migratory. 

In  the  cathedral  of  Leon,  Nicaragua,  he  tells  us,  may  be 
found  the  baptismal  record  of  Felix  Ruben,  legitimate  son 
of  Manuel  Garcia  and  Rosa  Sarmiento.  Following  the 
Spanish  custom  of  composing  tlie  family  name  from  that 
of  both  parents,  his  name  should  have  been  Felix  Ruben 
Garcia  Sarmiento.  Why,  then,  Dario?  A  great-grand- 
fatlier  of  his  had  borne  that  name,  and  was  known  in  the 
hamlet  as  Don  Dario;  hence  all  his  offspring  were  called 
the  Darios.  Ruben's  own  father  did  business  under  the 
name  of  Dario,  so  strongly  had  it  become  embedded.  The 
marriage  of  Ruben's  parents  had  been  a  loveless  match  of 
convenience;  the  couple  had  separated  eight  months  later; 
the  following  month  the  child  was  bom.  He  soon  passed 
imder  the  care  of  his  maternal  grandmother,  Doiia  Bernarda 
Sarmiento  de  Ramirez,  whose  husband  had  come  to  Hon- 
duras for  him,  and  he  was  brought  up  as  the  child  of  Colonel 


104       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

Ramirez  and  his  wife.  Dario  thus  knew  nothing  of  his 
mother;  her  image  was  early  effaced  from  his  memory;  his 
earliest  school  books,  indeed,  contain  as  his  signature  Felix 
Ruben  Ramirez. 

He  was  a  child  prodigy,  it  seems;  he  knew  how  to  read 
at  the  age  of  three.  At  the  death  of  the  colonel,  the 
child's  education  passed  into  the  hands  of  his  grandmother. 
The  old  house  inspired  the  impressionable  tot  with  terror. 
Added  to  the  lugubriousness  of  the  surroundings  was  the 
character  of  the  superstitious  tales  he  listened  to  from  his 
grandmother's  mother,  an  aged,  quivering  creature  who  told 
him  stories  of  headless  monks  and  mysterious  hands,  of 
sinful  women  carried  off  by  the  devil.  "And  thence  my 
horror  of  nocturnal  darkness,  and  the  torture  of  ineradica- 
ble nightmares."  The  poet's  fears,  indeed,  follow  him  all 
through  life;  he  fears  the  darkness,  he  broods  over  death, 
he  suffers  neurotic  torments. 

At  elementary  school  he  takes  courses  in  which  the  prin- 
ciple of  the  rod  is  unsparingly  applied,  together  with  hazy 
notions  of  arithmetic,  geography,  a  pinch  of  grammar, 
religion.  As  early  as  this  he  betrays  a  weakness  for  femi-  | 
nine  companionship,  and  his  one  whipping  from  the  school- 
master comes  from  being  discovered  "in  company  with  a 
precocious  little  girl." 

Among  the  first  books  he  read  (he  came  upon  them  in  an  I 
old  closet)  were  Don  Quijote,  tlie  works  of  Moratin,  the 
Thousand  and  One  Nights,  the  Bible,  the  de  Officiis  of  Cic- 
ero, Mme.  Stael's  Corinne,  some  classic  Spanish  plays  and 
a  hair-raising  novel  called  La  Caverna  de  Str)»zzi.  It  was, 
indeed,  as  he  says,  a  strange  mixture  for  a  child's  brain. 
And  how  symbolic  is  this  early  conjunction  of  the  Arabian    • 


RUB6N  DARIO  105 

\iglits  and  the  Bible!  Was  not  tlie  poet's  life  a  continuous 
oscillation  between  the  two?   .   .   . 

"I  never  learned  to  make  verses,"  he  asserts,  in  recount- 
ing his  earliest  attempts.  "It  was  organic,  natural,  innate 
in  me."  His  first  fame  came  to  him  as  a  writer  of  versified 
t'[)itaphs.  But  the  tlioughts  of  the  juvenile  poet  of  death 
were  far  indeed  from  the  graveyard.  Soon  his  first  sen- 
.■"ations  of  love  were  wakened  in  him  by  a  distant  cousin  of 
his  who  came  to  live  with  the  widow  Ramirez,  whom  Dario 
considered  his  mother.  ''The  call  of  the  blood!"  exclaims 
the  autobiographer.  ''What  a  shabby,  romantic  figment! 
The  only  paternity  is  the  habit  of  affection  and  care.  He 
who  suffers,  struggles  and  watches  over  a  child,  even  though 
he  has  not  engendered  it,  is  its  real  father." 

The  future  poet's  melancholy  character  became  rapidly 
evident.  He  was  fond  of  solitude,  fond  of  gazing  medi- 
tatively at  the  sky  and  out  to  sea.  Together  with  these 
recollections  of  juvenile  sadness  mingled  memories  of  horri- 
ble scenes.  Perhaps  Dario's  explanation  of  his  fears  is  but 
half  the  story  or  less;  most  children  hear  fairy  tales  and  ex- 
perience similar  shocks,  yet  react  to  them  more  sturdily. 
\^1iatever  the  case,  lliis  neurotic  sensitivity  remains  with 
Dario  for  the  rest  of  his  life,  as  does  his  amorous  suscepti- 
bility, with  which  it  may  have  had  organic  relation.  Both 
these  aspects  are  prominent  in  his  poetry  and  he  is  early 
attracted  to  spirits  of  a  similar  nature. 

A  third  element  now  appears,  the  religious — and  it  is 
significant  that  the  youngster  is  at  first  more  impressed  by 
the  awe  of  the  ceremonies  than  by  their  beauty.  During 
his  passionate  adolescence  he  writes  many  love  verses  and 
suffers  more  than  one  disillusionment  at  the  hands  of  die 


106       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

"inevitable  and  divine  enemy,"  love.  One  of  these  juv- 
enile flames  so  scorched  him  tliat  even  with  the  passing 
years  he  could  remember  the  name  of  the  little  North 
American  circus  girl, — Hortense  Buislay.  Unable  at  that 
time  to  obtain  the  price  of  admission,  he  wormed  into  the 
friendship  of  the  musicians  and  gained  surreptitious  en- 
trance by  carrying  their  music  or  their  instruments  into 
the  tent. 

Before  he  had  reached  his  thirteenth  year  one  of  his 
verses  had  already  appeared  in  a  daily  called  El  Termome- 
tro,  published  by  Jose  Dolores  Gomez,  in  the  city  of  Rivas. 
The  poem  was  one  of  the  rhymed  elegies  for  which  our 
Ruben  had  become  locally  famous;  he  recalls  a  stanza  for 
us: 

Murio  tu  padre,  es  verdad, 

lo  lloras,  tienes  razon, 

pero  ten  resignacion; 

que  existe  una  eternidad 

do  no  hay  penas.  .  .  . 

Y  en  un  trozo  de  azucenas 

Moran  los  justos  cantando.  .  .  . 

How  blithely  youth  sings  of  eternity,  and  how  sadly  old  age 
chants  childhood! 

With  the  publication  of  more  verse  Dario  became  known 
throughout  the  republics  of  Central  America  as  the  boy  poet. 
He  took  his  calling  with  intense  seriousness,  allowing  his 
hair  to  grow  long  and  neglecting  his  studies.  The  poet 
who  was  to  work  wonders  with  complicated  metres  and  have 
such  an  epoch-making  effect  upon  the  mathematical  bases 
of  poetics,  failed  disastrously  in  mathematics! 

The  "boy  poet"  was  soon  called  to  the  editorial  office  of  ^ 


RUBEN  DARIO  107 

the  political  sheet  La  Verdad,  where  began  his  long  com- 
panioii^^liip  with  jt)urnalisni.  But  this  was  an  opposition 
j)api>r,  and  before  long  Dario  was  confronted  with  the  in- 
evitable police, — inevitable  because  they  figure,  it  seems, 
in  the  life  oi'  almost  every  Hispano- American  writer  of  re- 
cent note,  and  not  a  few  of  Spain.  The  fourteen-year-old 
journalist  left  the  position  and  became  an  instructor  in 
grammar  in  a  colegio.  Here  he  happened  upon  a  book 
of  free-masonry  and  acquired  a  certain  prestige  among  his 
companions  because  of  his  caballistic  lore.  His  early  mel- 
ancholy contiiuied  to  torment  him;  he  experienced,  with  the 
coming  of  adolescence,  a  bodily  and  spiritual  transforma- 
tion. "I  felt  an  invisible  hand  thrusting  me  toward  the 
unknown."  And  toward  the  known,  too,  for  he  was  now 
visiting  a  large-eyed  girl  every  Saturday. 

Induced  to  go  to  the  capital,  Managua,  he  soon  acquired, 
through  influential  friends,  a  position  in  the  National  Li- 
brary. ''There  I  spent  long  months  reading  everything  I 
could  lay  hands  upon,  and  among  these  readings  were — 
horrendo  referens! — all  the  introductions  in  Rivadeneira  s 
Bihlioteca  de  Autores  Espanoles,  and  the  chief  works  of 
almost  all  the  classics  of  our  tongue.  Hence  it  comes  that 
...  I  am  really  very  well  versed  in  Spanish  letters,  as 
any  one  may  see  from  my  first  published  productions.  .  .  . 
It  was,  then,  deliberately  that  I  later  employed  manners  and 
constructions  of  otlier  languages,  exotic  words  and  phrases, 
ni)t  purely  Spanish,  with  the  desire  of  rejuvenating  and 
rendering  flexible  the  language."  The  excerpt  is  import- 
ant; it  helps  to  bear  out  the  contention  that  the  exoticism 
of  the  modernists  was  not  mere  affectation,  but  a  more  or 
,    less  conscious  (and  here,  as  in  the  case  of  Gutierrez  Najera, 


108       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

very  conscious)  desire  to  enrich  a  language  in  need  of  ex- 
pansion. It  is  worth  while  noting,  too,  that  the  iconoclastic, 
or  rather,  innovatory  program  was  based  upon  a  knowledge 
of  the  old. 

These  readings  were  varied  with  fresh  amatory  adven- 
tures. This  time  it  was  a  green-eyed,  chestnut-haired 
maiden  of  a  gentle  pallor.  Wherefore  new  verses,  some  of 
which  found  their  way  into  the  public  print  and  later  even 
into  some  of  his  books.  He  was  told  that  the  girl  had  al- 
ready loved  before, — loved  no  other  than  one  of  his  own 
dying  friends.  Part  of  this  torrid  love  and  the  consequent 
jealousy  found  its  way  into  Abrojos,  a  rare  predecessor  of 
Azul,  published  in  Chile.  At  fourteen  years  of  age  he  an- 
nounces his  intention  to  marry,  and  his  friends,  taking  him 
at  last  in  earnest,  present  him  with  a  travelling  bag  and  see 
him  off  to  Corinto,  where  he  takes  the  boat  to  El  Salvador! 
Here  he  was  charged  with  writing  an  ode  in  celebration  of 
Bolivar's  centenary,  which,  "according  to  my  vague  recol- 
lection was  naturally  very  different  from  all  my  later  pro- 
ductions." 

He  returns  to  Nicaragua;  love-affair  follows  love-affair, 
verse  follows  verse,  journalistic  experience  grows,  political 
duties  multiply.  Comes  an  especially  bitter  love-disap- 
pointment and  he  resolves  to  quit  the  land.  Whither? 
The  United  States.  But  a  friend  induces  him  to  go  to 
Chile,  and  thither  he  sails,  during  an  earthquake,  on  the 
good  ship  Kosmos.  "At  last  the  ship  reaches  Valparaiso. 
I  purchase  a  paper.  I  read  that  Vicuiia  Mackenna  has 
died.  In  twenty  minutes,  before  disembarking,  I  write  an 
article.  I  land.  The  same  thing  as  in  El  Salvador. 
What  hotel?  the  best."     This  short  paragraph  reveals  the 


RlBtN  DARfO  109 

ready  journalist  in  Dario,  as  well  as  the  man  with  the 
"hands  of  a  marquis,"  who  loved  luxury  with  a  fondness 
that  made  him  hate  money.  His  article  is  printed  in  the 
Valparaiso  Mcrciirio;  he  f^ets  a  place  upon  the  Santiago 
Le  Epoca  and  becomes  a  member  of  the  young  intellectual 
group.  From  the  Epoca  he  wins  a  prize  of  two  hundred 
pesos  for  the  best  poem  on  Can>poamor,  offered  by  the  di- 
rector to  the  members  of  his  staff.  Dario's  poem  is  a  skil- 
full  decima  well  concentrating  the  essence  of  a  poet  whom 
it  is  now  the  fashion  to  depreciate,  but  who  exercised  a  po- 
tent influence  and  knew  tlie  secret  of  saying  much  in  little. 
This  was  the  winning  poem: 

Este  del  cabello  cano 
como  la  piel  del  arniiiio, 
junta  su  candor  de  niiio 
con  su  experiencia  de  anciano. 
Cuando  se  tiene  en  la  mano 
un  libro  de  tal  varon 
abeja  es  cada  expresion, 
que  volando  del  papel 
deja  en  los  labios  la  miel 
y  pica  en  el  corazon. 

Those  who  have  enjoyed  the  concentrated,  epigrammatic, 
piquant,  worldly-wise,  genially  philosophic  Humoradas 
and  Doloras  of  Campoamor  will  agree  to  the  vivid  charact- 
erization, in  the  very  style  of  the  man  whose  literary  por- 
trait he  drew. 

From  the  Epoca  Dario  went  to  the  Valparaiso  Heraldo, 

there  to  write  his  first  article  on — sports!     Which  he  did 

so  very  well  that  he  was  invited  to  leave.     He  had  long  cher- 

>  ished  a  desire  to  figure  as  correspondent  of  La  Nacion 


no       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

(Buenos  Aires).  It  was  this  newspaper  that  taught  him, 
he  tells  us,  his  journalistic  style,  and  at  the  time  of  which 
we  are  speaking  three  divers  influences  aff^ected  him  in  his 
perfection  of  prose:  Paul  Groussac,  Santiago  Estrada,  Jose 
Marti.  In  these  existed  the  spirit  of  France,  and  of  the 
three,  "Groussac  was  my  real  intellectual  guide."  Through 
the  influence  of  his  friend,  the  Chilean  poet  Eduardo  de  la 
Barra,  he  was  accepted  on  La  Nacion. 

This,  however,  is  but  the  beginning  of  Dario's  literary 
and  amorous  pilgrimage.  He  is  attacked  by  small-pox, 
but  left  with  few  marks.  He  falls  into  one  of  his  numerous 
early  love  affairs  and  is  somehow  or  other  invited  to  a  party 
given  to  the  maiden  by  his  successful  rival.  Suddenly  he 
commences  to  improvise  verses  in  which  the  blackest  things 
are  said  about  the  rival,  the  girl's  family,  and  whom  not 
else,  and  is  packed  off^.  He  finds  himself  at  the  head  of  a 
unionist  newspaper.  He  makes  an  important  friend  in 
Francisco  Gavidia,  "who  is  perhaps  one  of  the  most  solid 
humanists  and  certainly  one  of  the  first  poets  of  South 
America." 

Through  Gavidia  he  had,  on  his  first  visit  to  El  Salvador, 
been  introduced  to  Hugo;  from  their  joint  reading  of  the 
master's    alexandrines,    "which    Gavidia,    certainly,    first 
wrote  in  Castilian  in  the  French  manner,"  he  received  the  \ 
idea  of  the  metrical  renovation  that  he  was  later  to  develop. 

On  the  22d  of  June,  1890,  he  was  at  last  married,  in  civil : 
form,  to  Rafaela  Contreras;  the  religious  ceremony,  which 
was  to  take  place  shortly  after,  was  postponed  by  a  revolu- 
tion that  broke  out  in  Salvador  that  same  night.  Becoming 
involved  in  a  political  issue,  Dario  fled  to  Guatemala, 
where  he  was  named  through  President  Barillas  (a  friend, 


RUBEN  DARIO  111 

of  President  Menemlez  of  Salvador,  wlio  liad  been  be- 
trayrd)  ilircctor  of  A7  Correo  de  la  Tarde.  A  lialf  year 
later  llie  reUgious  eoreinoiiy  of  marriage  tt)olv  place. 

He  was  sent  to  Spain  shortly  afterward  (1892)  as  Nic- 
aragua's delegate  to  the  celebration  of  the  Columbus  cen- 
tenary. The  assignment  was  so  sudden  that  he  had  time 
oidy  to  write  to  his  wife  and  (Mnbark  at  onc(\  There  he 
made  important  friendships  with  Menendez  y  Pelayo,  Cas- 
telar  ("the  first  time  I  went  to  the  great  man's  home  I  felt 
llie  emotions  of  Heine  arriving  at  Goethe's  house"),  Nunez 
de  Aree,  who  tried  to  keep  him  in  Spain,  Valcra  (who  had 
welcomed  his  Aziil  with  such  perspicacious  comment  and 
unerring  prophecy),  Campoamor,  Zorrilla. 

It  was  on  his  return  from  this  commission  that  he  visited 
Cuba  and  spent  a  few  hours  in  Santiago  de  Cuba.  This  is 
not  mentioned  in  his  autobiography  "despite  the  fact  that  he 
then  made  the  personal  acquaintance  of  Julian  del  Casal. 
Only  in  an  article  entitled  El  General  Lachambre  and  in  a 
public  letter  directed  to  Enrique  Hernandez  Miyares  (La 
Habana  Elegante,  Ano.  X.  No.  24.  Habana,  17  de  Junio 
de  1894)  has  Ruben  Dario  recalled  this  visit  to  Cuba  and 
his  friendship  with  Casal. ^ 

Reaching  Leon  he  was  informed  of  his  wife's  death. 
For  a  week  he  resorted  to  the  forgetfulness  of  drink  in  the 
face  of  the  terrible  blow.  He  does  not  seem,  however,  to 
have  possessed  any  more  paternal  affection  than  his  own 
father,  for  the  bringing  up  of  his  child  was  entrusted  to 
other  hands;  thus  it  had  been  for  nineteen  years  at  the  time 
he  wrote  his  biography. 

Now  comes  a  strange  episode  in  which  the  poet,  recover- 

'      1  M.  E.  UreSa.     Rodd  y  Ruben  Dario.     Pages  128-129. 


112       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

ing  from  his  alcoholic  lethargy,  went  to  Managua  to  collect 
a  half  year's  back  pay  from  the  government.  "I  arrived  at 
Managua  and  took  a  place  in  a  hotel.  I  was  surrounded  by 
old  friends;  I  was  given  to  understand  that  my  salary  would 
soon  be  paid,  but  the  fact  is,  I  had  to  wait  many  days;  so 
many  that  during  these  days  there  occurred  the  most  novel- 
esque  and  fatal  episode  in  my  life,  but  to  which  I  may  not 
refer  in  these  memoirs,  for  powerful  reasons.  It  is  a  sad 
page  of  violence  and  deception,  which  has  prevented  me 
from  forming  a  home  for  more  than  twenty  years;  but  there 
still  lives  the  person  who,  like  me,  suffered  the  consequence 
of  a  familiar  impetuous  step,  and  I  do  not  desire  to  increase 
a  protracted  grief  with  the  slightest  reference.  The  Mex- 
ican diplomat  and  writer,  Federigo  Gamboa  .  .  .  has  for 
many  years  had  this  romantic,  bitter  page  in  writing,  but 
has  not  published  it  because  I  was  opposed  to  its  inclusion 
in  one  of  his  books  of  memoirs.  So  that  a  gap  is  here 
necessary  in  my  life's  narrative."  Conjecture  is  naturally 
rife  about  the  episode ;  Gamboa  has  not  yet  made  his  knowl- 
edge public;  the  lines  refer  to  Dario's  second  marriage,  to 
Rosario  Murillo.  Was  the  marriage,  as  Max  Henriquez 
Ureiia  suggests,  the  product  of  an  alcoholic  overindulgence 
and  later  pressure?  At  any  rate,  Dario's  other  son,  Ruben 
Dario  Sanchez,  was  the  fruit  of  the  poet's  happy  union  to 
Francisca  Sanchez,  with  whom  Dario  lived  in  Europe. 

We  soon  find  Dario  named  Consul  from  Colombia  to 
Buenos  Aires.  Wliat  a  weakness  the  great  man  had  for 
outward  trappings  and  uniforms!  He  did  not  proceed  at 
once  to  Buenos  Aires,  however;  his  wish  was  first  to  go  to 
New  York,  then  to  visit  Paris,  and  only  then  to  go  to  the 
capital  of  Argentina.     So  he  took  the  boat  to  New  York, 


RUB^N  DARIO  113 

wliere  ho  met  Jose  Marti  in  llio  Cuban  colony;  the  revolu- 
tionist was  then  at  the  height  of  his  efTort.  Dario's  impres- 
sions of  Marti"*s  conversational  powers  are  very  vivid, 
"Xever  have  I  met,  even  in  Castelar  himself,  so  admirable 
a  conversationalist.  He  was  harmonious,  intimate  and 
gifted  with  a  prodigious  memory, — swift  and  ready  with 
(juotation,  reminiscence,  fact,  image.  I  spent  several  un- 
forgettable moments  with  him,  then  left  ...  I  never  saw 
liim  again."  Before  sailing  for  Paris  the  poet  visited 
Niagara,  but  how  different  are  his  impressions  from  those 
o(  Heredia  and  Bonalde.  "My  impression  before  the 
wonder,  I  confess,  was  less  than  might  have  been  imagined. 
Although  the  miracle  dominates  one,  the  mind  pictures  it 
so  much  greater  that  in  reality  it  possesses  no  such  fantastic 
proportions."  He  does,  however,  recall  Heredia's  verses 
before  tlie  sight.  How,  indeed,  should  Niagara  have  im- 
pressed tlie  Dari«  of  Azul? 

Paris,  on  the  contrary,  is  sacred  soil  to  him.  "I  had 
dreamed  of  Paris  since  I  was  a  child,  to  such  an  extent  that 
\shen  I  said  my  prayers  I  prayed  to  God  not  to  let  me  die 
before  I  saw  Paris.  Paris,  to  me,  was  a  sort  of  Paradise 
in  which  the  essence  of  earthly  happiness  was  breathed.  It 
was  the  City  of  Art.  of  Beauty  and  of  Glory;  and  above 
all,  the  capital  of  Love,  the  realm  of  Dream.  And  I  was 
about  to  know  Paris,  to  realize  the  greatest  desire  of  my  life. 
\^  hen  I  stepped  on  to  Parisian  earth  in  the  station  at  Saint 
Lazare,  I  felt  as  if  I  were  treading  holy  ground."  Here 
he  met,  during  his  short  stay,  Verlaine,  Jean  Moreas, 
Maurice  Duplessis  and  others.  His  picture  of  the  great 
Faun  is  short,  but  vivid.  He  was  introduced  to  Verlaine 
by  Alejandro  Sawa,  as  "poeta  americano,  admirador  .  .  . 


114       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

I  murmured  in  bad  French  all  the  devotion  I  could  express, 
and  finished  with  the  word  'glory'.  .  .  Who  could  tell  what 
had  happened  that  afternoon  to  the  unfortunate  master? 
The  fact  is  that,  turning  toward  me,  and  without  ceasing 
to  thump  the  table,  he  said  to  me  in  a  low  and  pectoral 
voice:  'La  gloire!  ...  La  gloire!  .  .  .  M.  .  .  .  M.  .  .  . 
Encore!'  I  believed  it  prudent  to  withdraw  and  await  a 
more  propitious  occasion."  This  was  to  prove  hardly  pos- 
sible, for  Dario  always  found  the  poet  in  the  same  besotted 
state.     "Pauvre  Lelian!" 

At  Buenos  Aires  the  consul  was  most  cordially  received. 
It  was  at  this  time,  upon  the  occasion  of  Queen  Victoria's 
anniversary,  that  he  dictated  in  the  cafe  of  The  Fourteen 
Provinces  a  small  poem  in  prose  to  the  sovereign.  For  lack 
of  paper  it  was  written  upon  the  backs  of  four  envelopes. 
If  I  translate  it  here,  it  is  not  because  of  its  intrinsic  worth  as 
a  piece  of  art,  which  is  not  great,  as  for  its  indirect  light 
upon  the  Dario  of  that  epoch,  just  before  the  publication  of 
the  Prosas  Prof  anas  that  were  to  create  such  a  powerful  im- 
pression on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic.  The  poem  is  entitled 
God  Save  the  Queen  (in  English)  with  the  English  words 
as  a  refrain.  At  the  time  his  autobiography  was  written, 
the  poem  had  not  yet  appeared  elsewhere  in  print. 

GOD  SAVE  THE  QUEEN 

To  ray  friend  C.  E.  F.  Vale 

Because  you  are  one  of  the  most  powerful  lands  of  poesy; 

Because  you  are  the  mother  of  Shakespeare; 

Because  your  men  are  strange  and  bold,  in  war  and  in  Olympic 

games ; 
Because  in  your  garden  blooms  the  best  flower  of  springtide  and 

in  your  heaven  shines  the  saddest  of  winter  suns; 


RUBEN  DARIO  115 

I  sinjz  to  your  queen,  oh  gjreat  and  proud  Brilaiu,  willi  the  verse 
that  is  repeated  by  the  lips  of  all  your  children: 

God  Save  the  Queen. 

Your  women  have  the  necJcs  of  swans  and  the  whiteness  of  the 

white  roses; 
Your  mountains  are  drenched  with  legends,  your  tradition  is  a 

mine  of  pokl,  your  history  a  mine  of  iron,  your  poesy  a  mine 

of  diamonds; 
[i     On  the  seas  your  banner  is  known  by  every  wave  and  every  wind, 

so  that  the  tempest  might  have  asked  for  English  citizenship; 
Because  of  your  strengtli,  oh  England; 

God  Save  the  Queen. 

Because  you  sheltered  Victor  Hugo  on  one  of  your  islands; 

Because,  above  the  seething  of  your  laborers,  the  drudgery  of 
your  sailors  and  tlie  anonymous  toil  of  your  miners,  you 
have  artists  that  clothe  you  in  silk  of  love,  in  gold  of  glory; 
in  lyric  pearls; 

Because  on  your  escutcheon  is  the  union  of  fortitude  and  dreams, 
in  tlie  symbolic  lion  of  the  kings  and  the  unicorn,  friend  of 
virgins  and  brother  of  the  dreamers'  Pegasus; 

God  Save  the  Queen. 

For  your  shepherds  who  say  the  psalms  and  your  fathers  who,  in 
the  tranquil  hours,  read  aloud  their  favorite  poet  by  the  fire- 
place; 

For  your  incomparable  princesses  and  your  secular  nobility; 

For  Saint  George,  conqueror  of  the  Dragon;  for  the  spirit  of  the 
great  Will,  and  the  verses  of  Swinburne  and  Tennyson; 

For  your  lithe  maidens,  made  of  milk  and  laughter,  as  fresh  and 
tempting  as  apples; 

loT  your  sturdy  youths  who  love  physical  exercise;  for  your 
scholars,  familiarized  with  Plato,  rowers  or  poets; 

i  God  Save  the  Queen. 


116       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

Envoi 

Queen  and  empress,  adored  by  your  great  people,  mother  of 
kings,  Victoria  favored  by  the  influence  of  the  Nile;  solemn  widow 
garbed  in  black,  adored  by  the  beloved  prince;  Mistress  of  the  sea, 
Mistress  of  the  land  of  elephants,  Defender  of  the  Faith,  pow- 
erful and  glorious  dame,  may  the  hymn  that  greets  you  today  be 
heard  around  the  world :     God  save  you ! 

Now,  too,  he  commenced  the  publication,  in  La  Nacion, 
of  the  series  which  was  later  to  be  published  in  volume 
form  as  Los  Raws.  He  later  agreed  that  there  was  too 
much  enthusiasm  in  his  criticism  of  the  writers  here  repre- 
sented, but  very  sensibly  he  recognizes  the  creative  power 
of  enthusiasm.  The  verses  penned  during  this  epoch  were 
likewise  to  be  gathered  later  under  the  famous  title  Prosas 
Prof  anas;  the  volume  was  first  brought  out  at  the  expense 
of  Dario's  friend  Carlos  Vega  Belgrano.  It  is  at  this 
period,  indeed,  that  modernism  may  be  said  to  have  been 
definitely  launched. 

At  the  end  of  the  Spanish-American  war  the  poet  was 
sent  to  Spain  by  La  Nacion,  and  out  of  his  correspondence 
for  that  periodical  grew  the  volume  Espafia  Contempo- 
ranea;  his  later  visit  to  the  Paris  Exposition  of  1900  like- 
wise resulted  in  his  book  Peregrinaciones;  these  continental 
travels  were  continued  for  the  same  enterprising  organ, 
through  England,  Italy,  Germany,  Belgium,  Austria-Hun- 
gary. The  traveler  Dario  in  his  work  shows  the  same 
spirit  we  have  noticed  in  the  more  circumscribed  travels 
of  Gutierrez  Najera;  once  more  he  proves  the  old  dictum 
that  one  receives  no  more  from  foreign  visits  than  he  brings 
to  them;  and  Dario  brought  much.  Dario  has  left  us  a 
close  view  of  Oscar  Wilde,  as  the  English  poet  appeared  to 


RUBEN  DARIO  117 

liim  when  they  mcl  at  tlie  Paris  Exposition.  ".  .  .  Some- 
what robust,  shaved  gentleman,  with  an  ahhatial  air,  very 
engaging  in  manner,  who  spoke  French  with  a  marked 
Knglisli  aeeent.  .  .  .  Rarely  have  I  met  a  person  of  greater 
distinetion,  a  more  elegant  eulture,  a  more  genteel  urbanity. 
He  had  lately  come  out  of  prison.  His  former  French 
friemls,  who  had  showered  him  with  adulation  in  his  days 
of  wealth  and  triumph,  now  ignored  him.  ...  He  had  even 
changed  his  name  at  the  hotel  where  he  stopped,  calling 
himself  by  a  Balzaquian  title,  Sebastian  Mcnmolth.  All 
his  works  had  been  placed  under  the  ban  in  England.  He 
was  living  w  ith  the  aid  of  a  few  London  friends.  For  rea- 
sons of  health  he  needed  a  trip  to  Italy,  and  with  all  respect 
he  was  offered  the  necessary  expense  by  a  barman  named 
John.  A  few  months  later  poor  Wilde  died,  and  I  was 
unable  to  go  to  his  burial,  for  when  I  learned  of  his  death 
tlie  unfortunate  fellow  was  already  under  the  sod.  And 
now  in  England  and  all  over  the  world  his  glory  begins 
anew." 

Dario  himself,  as  he  appeared  at  the  Paris  Exposition, 
has  been  pictured  by  his  friend  Vargas  Vila:  "He  was  still 
young,  well  built,  with  a  genius's  glance  and  a  sad  air.  It 
seemed  that  all  the  races  of  the  world  had  placed  their  seal 
upon  that  countenance,  which  was  like  a  shore  that  had 
received  the  kisses  of  all  the  waves  of  the  ocean.  It  might 
have  been  said  that  he  had  the  countenance  of  his  poetry — 
Oriental  and  Occidental,  African  and  Japanese,  with  a  per- 
petual vision  of  Hellenic  shores  in  his  dreamy  pupils.  And 
he  appeared,  as  always,  sculptured  out  of  Silence;  he  was 
his  own  shadow." 

Returning  from  his  European  travels,  Dario  was  named 


118       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AIMERICAN  LITER.\TURE 

Nicaraguan  consul  to  Paris,  after  having  learned  of  a  false 
report  of  his  death.  The  poet,  indeed,  was  twice  falsely  re- 
ported dead;  one  of  the  rumors  brought  forth  a  hardly 
flattering  obituary  notice  from  some  irate  priest,  in  the 
Estrella  de  Panama:  "Thank  God  that  this  pest  of  Spanish 
literature  has  already  disappeared.  .  .  .  With  his  death 
we  have  lost  absolutely  nothing.   .   .   ." 

Being  named,  in  1906,  Nicaraguan  delegate  to  the  Pan- 
American  Congress  at  Rio  de  Janeiro,  he  proceeded  to  that 
country;  the  mission  accomplished,  he  went  to  Buenos 
Aires,  feeling  the  need  of  a  rest.  Thence  he  returned  to 
the  perennial  Paris  of  his  dreams, — "the  center  of  neuro- 
sis," he  calls  it,  in  a  poetic  letter  to  the  wife  of  the  noted 
Argentine  poet,  Leopoldo  Lugones.  The  letter,  by  the  way, 
was  written  from  Majorca,  whither  the  sick  poet  had  gone 
to  avoid  the  Parisian  winter,  and  where  he  visited  spots 
consecrated  by  the  memory  of  George  Sand  and  Chopin, 
and  the  cave  in  which  Raymond  Lully  prayed. 

Disgusted  with  the  outcome  of  the  boundary  dispute  be- 
tween Nicaragua  and  Honduras,  which  had  been  referred 
to  Alphonso  XIII  as  arbiter,  and  on  which  Dario,  together 
with  Vargas  Vila,  had  been  appointed  members  for  Nica- 
ragua, the  poet  resolved  to  return  to  his  native  land,  after 
an  absence  of  eighteen  years.  He  was  received  with  the 
utmost  enthusiasm  and  President  Zelaya  now  named  him 
Minister  Plenipotentiary  to  Madrid,  whereupon  the  eternal 
wanderer  returned  to  Spain,  where  the  King,  after  the 
official  ceremony  of  receiving  him,  discussed  his  poetry  with 
him.  With  diplomatic  honors  flying  in  the  air,  tliere  now 
came  an  appointment  to  Dario  (who  may  have  deceived 
himself  tliat  he  was  a  diplomat,  even  as  Voltaire  did  tliat  he 


RUB^N  DARib  119 

was  a  playwright)  as  Envoy  Extraordinary  to  tlir  govern- 
ment of  Mexico  on  the  occasion  of  tlie  centenary  of  Mexican 
independence.  However,  Dario  had  once  written  a  poem 
called  To  Rooscrclt,  in  whieli  the  Tnited  States  was  looked 
upon  as  a  possible  invader  of  Spanish  America;  complica- 
tions were  feared,  and  Dario  never  fulfdled  his  functions  as 

P  envoy.  Provided  with  the  necessary  funds,  the  poet  re- 
turned to  that  Europe  which  was  really  more  his  homt^ 
than  America,  for  all  his  calling  Argentina  his  second 
nation. 

j  Shortly  after  his  return  he  founded  the  review  Mimdial; 
founding  reviews  is  one  of  the  literary  amusements  of 
Spanish-American  poets.  He  was  received  by  such  emi- 
nent Frenchmen  as  Paul  Fort,  Anatole  France,  and  Remy 
de  Gourmont.  Once  again  he  made  a  tour  of  the  conti- 
nents, being  welcomed  enthsiastically  in  Spain,  Brazil  and 
various  nations  of  South  America;  then  came  the  great  war 
to  interrupt  the  publication  of  his  review  and  to  accentuate 
tlie  illness  that  was  coming  over  the  poet.  Once  again  he 
turned  to  tliat  Majorca  which  has  been  enshrined  in  one  of 
Blasco  Ibanez's  best  novels — Los  Muertos  Mandan.  His 
final  days  were  filled  with  an  intense  fear  for  France's 
fate.  It  would  not  be  difficult  indeed,  however  unfruitful 
all  such  discussions  are.  to  show  that  Dario  was  intellect- 
ually French  rather  than  Spanish. 

Dario's  final  homecoming  is  a  gloomy  one.  Broken  in 
health,  he  journeyed  to  New  York  on  his  way  to  Nicaragua; 
his  coming  was  little  noticed  outside  of  intellectual  circles. 
He  was  presented  by  the  Hispanic  Society  of  America — 

^   itself  too  little  known  here — with   its  coveted   medal   of 
honor.     Dario  was  stricken  in  New  York  with  double  pneu- 


120       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

monia;  he  was  able,  however,  to  make  his  way  to  Guate- 
mala, thence  to  Leon,  where  he  died  on  the  sixth  of  Feb- 
ruary, 1916. 

Such  was,  in  outline,  the  life  of  that  strangely  wrought 
figure  who  symbolizes  the  age  of  modernism  in  Castilian 
poetry.  His  inner  existence  is  fully  as  agitated  as  his  out- 
ward. "There  was,  in  Dario,"  Vargas  Vila  has  written,^ 
"the  tendency,  almost  the  necessity,  to  believe,  which  is  in- 
herent in  all  weak  creatures;  he  believed  in  everything, — 
even  in  the  most  absurd  things;  the  supernatural  world 
attracted  him  with  an  irresistible  fascination,  as  did  all  the 
aspects  of  mystery.  He  believed  in  God ;  he  believed  in  the 
Devil.  .  .  ."  Dario,  in  fact,  at  one  time  of  his  life,  de- 
sired to  become  a  monk,  and  there  is  an  interesting  photo- 
graph of  him  taken  in  the  monastic  cowled  gown.  Indeed, 
with  his  photographs,  as  with  his  early  readings,  a  signifi- 
cant juxtaposition  might  be  made.  Place  this  priestly  pic- 
ture beside  tlie  vainglorious  gold  braid,  plumed  hat  and 
sword  of  the  photograph  that  adorns  the  Maucci  edition  of 
his  autobiography,  and  you  have  the  two  dominant  influ- 
ences between  which  Dario  wavered  all  through  his  life: 
Paganism  and  Christianity,  epicureanism  and  religion,  the 
body  and  the  soul,  agitation  and  repose,  eroticism  and  con- 
templation. This  oscillation  between  contradictory  im- 
pulses, so  characteristic  of  the  age  itself  as  well  as  of  its 
literary  figures,  is  well  portrayed  by  Vargas  Vila  in  his 
lyric  biography  of  his  friend. 

"He  never  matured.     He  never  became  what  we  call  a 

man,  in  the  dolorous,  brutal  sense  of  the  word.  .   .  .  He 

might  have  lived  for  centuries,  and  would  have  died  the 

t 

2  Vargas  Vila's  Ruben  Dario.     Madrid.     Page  55. 


RUBEN  DARIO  121 

same  sad,  radiant  rliild  wc  all  knew.  Life  wounded  hini, 
but  did  not  stain  him. — His  soul  possessed  the  oiliness  of 
the  uings  of  his  heloved  swans,  over  whieh  tlie  slime  glides 
without  adheriiijj;  to  them.  .  .  .  Never  in  a  soul  so  pure 
was  there  lodged  a  body  so  sinful.  .   .  ." ' 

It  is  from  sueh  a  soul  and  sueh  a  body  that  Dario's  poems 
proceed;  now  one  aspect  is  uppermost,  now  another,  now 
both  aspects  are  fused  in  art's  highest  manifestations.  But 
everywhere  tliey  are  a  human  product, — tlie  outpourings 
of  a  spirit  that  wandered  through  art  as  well  as  through 
life,  and  was,  as  much  as  a  standard-bearer  of  innovation, 
a  plastic  personality  who  revealed  humanity  to  itself  in 
his  own  self-revelations."* 

s  Vargas  Vila.     Op.  cit.     Pages  ISO-lSl. 

♦  Valuable  autobiographic  material  is  present  in  Dario's  unfinished  novel 
El  Oro  de  Mallorca  (published  in  the  February-,  1917,  number  of  Nosotros, 
Buenos  Aires).  Benjamin_  hashes,  the  hero,  is  recognized  as  Ruben  Dario. 
This  Itaspes  "recitecT^his  paternoster  every  night,  for  despite  his  restless, 
aggressive  spirit  and  his  wandering,  agitated  life,  he  had  preserved  many 
of  the  religious  beliefs  that  had  been  instilled  in  him  in  his  childhood." 
Itaspes  is  as  little  sociable  as  Dari'o,  and  as  much  aristocratic  except  in 
dealings  with  folk  of  untainted  simplicity.  It  is  "the  fifth  and  third  of 
the  capital  sins"  that  have  most  possessed,  from  his  earliest  years,  his 
"sensual  body  and  his  curious  soul."  .  .  .  '"If  a  diabolic  drink  or  an  ap- 
petizing food  or  a  beautiful  sinful  body  brings  me  in  advance  ...  a  bit 
of  paradise,  am  I  to  let  this  certainty  pass  for  something  of  which  I  have 
no  sure  notion?"  (Note  the  characteristic  mingling  of  faith  and  epicurean- 
ism in  that  passage.)  In  the  same  unfinished  novel  Dari'o  speaks  of  the 
hero's  "erotic  temperament,  incited  by  the  most  exuberant  of  imaginations 
and  his  morbid,  artist's  sensitiveness,  his  musical  passion,  which  exacerbated 
him  and  possessed  him  like  a  divine  interior  spirit.  In  his  anguish,  at  times 
without  foundation  in  reason,  he  sought  support  in  a  vague  mysticism.  .  .  . 
His  great  love  of  life  was  placed  against  an  intense  fear  of  death.  This, 
to  him,  was  a  phobia,  a  fixed  idea."  Itaspes,  like  Dari'o.  is  portrayed  as 
a  man  with  "the  instincts  and  the  predispositions  of  an  archduke"  (in  the 
Pdlabras  Preliminares  to  Prosas  Profanas  he  spoke  of  his  marquis's  hands). 
The  final  years  of  Itaspes  mirror  Dario's  concluding  days. — neurotic,  half 
athritic,  half  gastritic,  haunted  by  inexplicable  fears,  "indifferent  to  fame 


/ 


122       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

II 

The  poetic  career  of  Ruben  Dario  is  another  striking 
proof  that  the  great  artist  may  not  be  hooped  in  by  critical 
symbols.  The  progress  of  his  labors  exemplifies  what  I 
may  call  a  creative  eclectism.  Is  that  not,  too,  Nature's 
method  of  improving  upon  herself,  which  we  call  natural 
selection?  .  .  .  From  the  study  of  Dario's  poetry  we  may 
discover  the  spiritual  counterpart  of  his  wandering  exist- 
ence, ranging  from  tlie  earliest  romantic  efforts,  through  a 
renovation  of  prose  technique,  poetic  technique,  the  acqui- 
sition of  a  more  human  outlook,  and  the  final  emergence 
of  these  combined  powers  in  masterpieces  that  belong  to 
world  poesy. 

1.  Early  Efforts. 

Dario's  earliest  efforts  are  contained  in  the  collections 
Epistolas  y  Poemas  (1885)  and  Abrojos  (1887).  In  the 
first  his  great  god  is  Hugo;  in  the  second  his  affections  have 
shifted  to  Becquer,  Campoamor,  Nuiiez  de  Arce  and  Zorr- 
illa,  particularly  the  last.  As  may  be  expected,  there  is 
little  in  these  lines  from  the  pen  of  a  youth  between  his 
eighteenth  and  twentieth  years  to  reveal  the  dominant  per- 
sonality of  the  future.  He  is  as  yet  diffident  as  to  his  pow- 
ers and  asks  the  Muses  {El  Poeta  a  Las  Musas)  whether  his 
humble  plectrum  is  better  suited  to  martial  hymns,  or  to 
harmonious  eclogues.     He  knows  surely  tliat  he  longs  for 

and  loving  money  for  the  independence  it  confers;  desirous  of  rest  and 
solitude,  yet  tense  with  the  desire  for  life  and  pleasure.  .  .  ."  Weary,  dis- 
illusioned, the  tool  of  self-seeking  exploiters  of  his  gifts,  the  target  of  false 
friendship,  adulation, — such  is  Itaspes,  and  such  Dario  at  the  end. 


RUBEN  DARK)  123 

r.iiiit'.  and  \hc  crown  it  awards  to  the  priests  of  beauty.     He 
K'cls  tilt*  influence  nl  tlic  past,  yet  is  tempted  by  the  modern: 

Deciilnie  si  lir  do  alzar  vocos  altiva.s 
ensal/aiulo  el  espiritu  modcriio, 
o  si  ei'luuulo  al  olvido  cslas  edadcs 
nie  abamione  a  merced  de  los  recuerdos. 

Hoy  el  rayo  de  Jupiter  Olimpico 
es  esclavo  de  Irauklin  y  de  Ktlison; 
ya  nada  quede  del  flamante  tirso, 
y  el  ruin  Champagne  sucedio  al  Falerno. 

Todo  acabo.     Decidme,  sacras  Musas, 
como  eantar  en  este  aciago  tiempo 
en  que  hasta  los  humanos  orgollosos 
pretenden  arrojar  a  Dios  del  cielo. 

A  most  reactionary  beginning,  this,  for  the  priest  of  mod- 
ernist beauty.  The  very  fact  that  he  should  address  such 
a  question  to  the  Muses  shows  that  he  inclines  to  the  past,  as 
does  his  complaint  that  science  is  attempting  to  rob  the  Lord 
of  heaven.  Young  Dario's  faith,  however,  does  not  prevent 
him  from  becoming  unwittingly  blasphemous  when  he 
voices  his  worship  of  Hugo  in  Victor  Hugo  y  la  Tumba, 
from  tlie  same  initial  collection.  Hugo  is  represented  as 
dying  and  seeking  entrance  into  the  abode  of  rest.  He  is 
refused  admission.  "Wait!"  speaks  the  Tomb.  "I  know 
not  whether  you  may  enter  my  regions."  For  Hugo  is 
more  dian  mortal.  The  Tomb  asks  advice  of  the  winds, 
and  the  stars.  The  genius  must  not  die,  is  the  universal 
response. 

xPor  que  se  va  el  profeta  que  al  mal  siempre  hizo  guerra? 
;Teme  Dio?  que  le  aclamen  y  adoren  como  a  el? 


124       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

There  is  something  comically  juvenile  about  the  image  of 
God  fearing  Hugo's  competition.  At  the  same  time  the 
young  poet  reveals  a  deep  appreciation  of  the  great  French- 
man, who  to  him  appears  in  the  guise  of  a  universal  savior 
of  slaves,  the  singer  of  John  Brown,  "The  great  hope  of 
the  cursed  race,  the  new  Messiah  who  brings  infinite  light 
and  a  new  decalogue  for  humanity."  Though  conservative 
in  style,  it  is  torrential  in  praise  and  gives  us  a  glimpse  of 
the  deep  inner  life  of  the  youth. 

But  Hugo  is  not  the  sole  influence  in  the  Epistolas  y 
Poemas.  Such  epistles  as  that  to  Juan  Montalvo  have  been 
recognized  as  possessing  genuinely  Hellenic  balance  and 
sobriety.  Andres  Gonzalez  Blanco  in  his  voluminous,  ex- 
haustive, exhausting,  wandering,  yet  indispensable  Estudio 
Preliminar,  quotes  part  of  the  epistle  (the  works  of  Dario 
prior  to  Azul  are  very  difficult  to  procure)  and  compares 
it  for  classic  decorum  and  serene  elegance  to  the  work  of 
Menendez  y  Pelayo,  who  was  much  read  by  the  young 
Nicaraguan.  This  phase  of  Dario's  first  book  is  illustrated 
by  the  following  excerpt: 

Noble  ingenio:  la  luz  de  la  palabra 
toca  el  animo  y  dale  vida  nueva, 
mostrandole  ignoradas  maravillas 
en  el  mundo  infinite  de  los  seres. 

La  eternidad  presentase  asombrosa 
astrayendo  al  espiritu  anhelante, 
y  el  ansia  crece  en  el  humano  pecho 
al  resplandor  lejano  de  la  aurora. 

Tu  inspirado  y,  deseoso,  alzas  la  frente, 
y  con  el  diapason  de  la  armonia 


Rl  BEN  DARIO  125 

sabio  sigucs  scndero   provechoso, 

extendiendo  la  pauta  del  idionia, 

y  forinaiido  el  fulpor  del  pensaiuiento, 

si  j^iibes  nieli)dias  unifornios 

conu)  el  ritino  immoiial  de  las  esferas. 

Thus  early  do  wo  fiiul  indications  of  a  certain  "Amer- 
icanism," as  in  the  poem  El  Porvenir;  it  is  of  interest  as  a 
germ  that  lies  many  years  undeveloped.  Thus  early,  too, 
do  we  discover  the  poet's  Horatian  hatred  for  the  crowd, 
which  is  to  him  a  mere  beast  to  be  discouraged  every  time 
it  tries  to  raise  its  head.  "The  people  is  dull,  filthy,  evil; 
clap  on  tlie  yoke;  it  complains  of  the  taskmaster,  then  give 
it  drubbings  and  more  of  them."  ...  To  this  little  sociol- 
ogist (whose  juvenile  ideas  are  still  unfortunately  shared 
by  more  than  one  professor  of  economics),  the  common 
toiler  was  born  for  the  yoke,  must  remain  content  with  it 
and  eat  his  bread  and  onions  in  silence. 

Equally  enlightening  are  the  poet's  early  views  on 
women.  Of  course  there  is  nothing  cryptic  in  this  mis- 
og)ny.  We  know  Dario  now  better  than  he  knew  himself 
then;  it  is  easy  to  see  that  his  woman-hatred  was  sympto- 
matic of  his  excessive  love  of  them,  as  is  most  misogyny. 
Tliat  is  why,  when  we  read  some  of  his  early  lines  with  the 
music  and  passion  of  his  later  ones  ringing  in  our  ears,  we 
smile  at  such  platitudinous  condemnations  as  the  verses  in 
which  he  refers  woman's  beauty  to  alien  aids,  and  tells  them 
that  though  he  covets  their  kisses,  they  are  nothing  but  flesh 
and  bone.  "Came  y  huesos!"  The  very  words  which  he 
was  later  to  deify  as  the  best  incarnation  of  the  Muses! 

Abrojos,  as  its  name — Thistles — indicates,  represents 
'  the  varied  reactions  of  the  melancholy,  love-sick  adolescent 


126       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

to  the  bitterness,  grief  and  desires  of  his  youthful  career. 
It  is  now  cynical,  now  humorous  in  the  Campoamorian 
sense.  It  is  aware  of  man's  envious  nature  and  his  cruelty 
to  his  own  species. 

Eres  artista?     Te  afeo 
Vales  algo?     Te  critico. 
Te  aborrezco  si  eres  rico 
Y  si  pobre  te  apedreo. 

Y  de  la  honra  haciendo  el  robo 
e  hiriendo  cuanto  se  ve, 
sale  cierto  lo  de  que 
el  hombre  del  hombre  es  lobo. 

What  are  some  of  these  thistles?  Let  us  bind  a  few 
together  into  the  Dario  we  know  from  his  own  confessions. 
"Consider  whether  so  unfortunate  a  love  was  deep,  when 
it  hated  an  honest  man  and  was  jealous  of  a  dying  one!" 
.  .  .  "I  am  a  wise  man,  I  am  an  atheist;  I  believe  in 
neither  god  nor  devil  (  .  .  .  But  I'm  dying.  Send  for  a 
confessor.) "  .  .  .  "Speak  no  more  to  me,  for  another  word 
like  that  could  kill  me!"  .  .  .  Platitudinous,  naturally. 
But  isn't  the  later  Dario  here,  too,  as  well  as  the  impres- 
sionable youngster?  In  his  eagerness  for  fame  he  is  sen- 
sitive to  life's  ironic  attitude  toward  genius,  and  embodies 
his  sarcastic  views  in  a  sparkling  eight-line  antithesis: 

Vivio  el  pobre  en  la  miseria, 
nadie  le  oyo  en  su  disgracia; 
cuando  fue  a  pedir  limosna 
le  arrojaron  de  la  casa. 

Despues  que  murio  mendigo 
le  elevaron  una  estatua.  .  .  . 


RLBEN  DARK)  127 

Vivan  los  muertos,  que  no  lian 
estomago  ni  quijados! 

Tliis  is  not  poetry;  it  is,  liowovcr,  doubly  instructive.  It 
gives  us  to  know  the  poet  in  his  initial  outpourings,  and  also 
helps  us  to  understand  that  not  all  genius  springs  from 
the  head  of  Zeus,  full  bom. 

There  are,  howev(T,  in  Abrojos,  touches  of  beauty  as    1 
well  as  of  youthful  cynicism  and  disillusionment.     Some  of    I 
these  touehes  have  been   coupled   with   the  names  of  de 
Musset  and  Heine.     On  the  whole,  however,  the  collection 
is  what   its   name   implies;   the  verses,   of  uneven   worth 
and  of  easily  recognized  parentage,  are  based  upon  the 
young  poet's  daily  experiences.     They  indicate  the  storing   j 
up  of  an  immense  hoard  of  emotions  in  the  bosom  of  an   I 
ideally-minded,  little  communicative,  intense  youth.     Only 
gradually  does  Dario  fully  disburden  himself  of  his  inner 
life;  his  early  Parnassianism,  indeed,  may  have  been  an 
artistic  symptom  of  his  characteristic  aloofness.     Yet  that 
inner  life  was  too  intense  to  dwell  in  the  ivory  tower;  now 
and   again   it  sought   refuge  there,  but  always   it  looked 
through  and,  seeing  the  world,  came  down.  .  .  .^ 

*  In  Epistolas  y  Poemas  (first  called  Primeras  Notas)  Dario  under  the 
influence  of  his  friend  Gavidia,  makes  ventures  in  adapting  the  French 
Alexandrine  to  Spanish  meter.  The  innovation  is  really  due  to  Gavidia, 
who  first  adapted  the  free  form  of  the  Alexandrine  in  a  translation  from 
Hugo.  (See  M.  E.  Ureiia,  Rodo  y  Dario,  page  102.)  Regarding  the 
Abrojos,  Dario,  in  his  A.  De  Gilbert,  explains  that  they  were  genuine 
outpourings  of  bitterness  actually  experienced.  "As  for  their  technique, 
they  were  bom  of  Compoamor's  Humoradas  and  above  all,  from  Leopoldo 
Cano's  Saetas.  .  .  .  .\s  a  first  book,  as  a  card  of  entree  into  the  literary  life 
of  Santiago,  it  was  hardly  a  propos.  Above  all,  there  is  in  it  a  skepticism 
and  a  black  desolation  which,  if  it  be  certain  that  they  were  true,  were 
the  work  of  the  moment.  To  doubt  God,  virtue,  good,  when  one  is  at  the 
ver>-  dawn  of  life, -no.     If  what  we  believe  pure  we  discover  to  be  sullied; 


128       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 


2,  Azul.  }: 

What's  in  a  name?  And  yet  the  name  of  this  famous 
little  book,  a  collection  of  poems  and  quasi-tal^s  in  poetic 
prose,  has  had  much  ink  spilled  about  it  and  about.  "Why 
this  title  Blue?"  asks  Dario  in  his  Historia  de  Mis  Libras. 
And  then,  in  response  to  the  erroneous  attribution  of  Hugo's 
influence  (the  French  master  had  said  "I'art  c'est  I'azur") 
he  adds:  "I  did  not  at  that  time  yet  know  the  Hugoesque 
phrase  .  .  .,  although  I  was  acquainted  with  the  musical 
stanza  from  Les  Chatiments: 

Adieu,  patrie, 
L'onde  est  en  furie! 
Adieu,  patrie, 
Azur! 

But  blue  was  to  me  the  color  of  dreams,  the  color  of  art,  a 
Hellenic  and  a  Homeric  color,  an  oceanic  and  a  firmamental 
color,  the  'coeruleum'  which  in  Pliny  is  the  simple  color  re- 
sembling that  of  the  heavens  and  the  sapphire.  .  .  ."  And 
why  should  art  be  blue  rather  than  any  other  color?  asked 

if  the  hand  that  we  judged  friendly  wounds  or  deceives  us;  if,  enamored 
of  light,  of  holiness  and  the  ideal,  we  come  face  to  face  with  the  sewer; 
if  social  misery  produces  in  us  the  terror  of  vengeance;  if  brother  curses 
brother;  if  son  insults  father;  if  mother  sells  daughter;  if  the  claw  triumphs 
over  the  wing;  if  the  stars  above  tremble  for  the  hell  below  .  .  .  thunders 
of  God!  here  you  are  to  purify  everything,  to  arouse  the  dormant,  to  an- 
nounce the  thunderbolts  of  justice.  .  .  .  Today,  however  much  deceptions 
have  destroyed  my  illusions,  as  a  worshipper  of  God,  a  brother  of  men,  a 
lover  of  women,  I  place  my  soul  under  my  hope.  .  .  ."  How  strange  to 
hear  a  youth  of  twenty-two,  already  widely  known  for  Azul  when  the  above 
letter  was  written,  speak  of  disillusions  on  the  brink  of  a  life  that  was 
to  be  filled  with  them,  as  well  as  with  gnawing  doubt  and  moments  of 
despair! 


I 


RUB^N  DARl'O  120 

Juan  Valcra,  in  his  classic  criticism  of  the  collection. 
Why,  indeed?  And  uliy  not?  Art  is  whatever  color  one 
will  have  it.  And  it  nuist  have  hccn  very  hlue  indeed  to 
the  rising  generation  of  the  day,  for  two  years  after  the 
death  of  Gutierrez  Najera,  when  the  name  Blue  Review 
(whith  had  been  endeared  to  the  youth  of  Mexico  hy  the 
late  master)  was  given  to  a  magazine  that  ojijiosed  tiic  new 
piH'tic  tendencies,  there  was  an  intellectual  uprising  which 
rcsuhi'il  in  the  witlidrawal  of  the  usurper.  And  did  not 
that  same  tender  poet  write  in  one  of  his  prose  chronicles: 
"I  cannot  compare  the  sensation  which  the  recollection  of 
that  lake  proiluccs  in  me  with  anything  except  that  which 
is  produced  upon  me  by  the  poetry  of  Lamartine:  it  is  a 
blue  sensation.  Why  not  attribute  color  to  sensations?  It 
is  color  that  paints,  that  speaks  in  loudest  voice  to  the  eyes, 
to  the  spirit.  And  I  feel  a  rose  color  when  I  recall  my 
first  morning  in  the  torrid  land,  the  sunrise  contemplated 
'  from  the  window  of  the  palace  of  the  Cortes;  I  feel  a  silver 
color  when  I  recall  my  moonlit  night  on  the  sea,  and  I  feel 
a  blue  color  when  there  comes  to  my  memory  the  lake  of 
?  Patzcuaro."  A  late  critic  professes  to  see  in  Azul  ...  an 
•  entire  program  of  ideological  revolution.  It  is  a  skilful 
I  transmutation  of  the  objective  into  tlie  subjective.  Some- 
!  thing  of  this  may  have  been  present  in  Dario's  mind  when 
he  chose  the  title;  he  was  always  skilful  in  naming  his 
works.  The  title,  however,  is  the  least  important  matter 
connected  with  the  work;  if  another  Dario  can  produce  an- 
other book  of  the  kind  in  the  firm  conviction  that  art  is  helio- 
trope, why, — art  is  heliotrope,  and  that  is  all.  .  .   . 

Valera  saw  much  further  than  the  title.     He  noted  at 
•»  once  the  Gallicism  of  the  author, — mental  Gallicism,  he 


130       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

called  it, — and  his  cosmopolitan  spirit.  He  saw,  too,  the 
young  man's  essential  originality,  and  freely  predicted 
his  advancement.  To  be  sure,  he  feared  the  Gallic  ele- 
ment, even  as  more  than  one  other  Spanish  critic  fears 
Gallicism  in  thought  on  the  part  of  a  Spaniard,  through 
an  exaggerated  notion  of  national  values  in  literature. 
Whiatever  the  faults  with  Valera's  review  of  Azul — which 
is  one  of  the  important  critiques  to  be  read  by  all  students 
of  Dario, — despite  a  certain  conservatism  of  outlook,  a  cer- 
tain preceptive  attitude, — he  saw  far  more  clearly  into  the 
prose  and  poetry  of  the  book  than  more  than  one  "modern- 
ist" critic  after  him.  His  opinions  have  been  stamped 
more  or  less  deeply  upon  all  subsequent  criticism.  This  is 
not  merely  because  of  his  priority,  but  because  the  genial 
old  man  knew  too  much  about  good  literature  not  to  recog- 
nize it  in  whatever  form  it  presented  itself.  Dario's  book 
came  at  a  time  when  the  cosmopolitan  spirit  was  needed  by 
the  letters  of  Spanish  America ;  tlie  work  was  revolutionary 
less  in  matter  than  in  manner;  it  was  the  spark  that  ignited 
the  modernist  conflagration. 

In  the  prose  tales  of  Azul  .  .  .  may  be  discerned  the 
intense  idealism  of  their  youthful  author.  Whether  the 
scene  be  the  fabled  land  of  The  Bourgeois  King,  the  realms 
of  The  Deaf  Satyr,  or  the  garret  of  the  starved  artists  over 
which  floats  the  Veil  of  Queen  Mab,  the  real  background  is 
the  land  of  the  ideal, — a  land  where  art  reigns  in  the  telling, 
even  though  it  be  defeated  by  the  tale.  And  how  much 
self-revelation  there  is  in  these  seemingly  impersonal,  deli- 
cate, airy  traceries  of  language!  When,  in  El  Rey  Bur- 
gues,  the  stranger  addresses  the  King  of  the  commonplace, 
is  it  not  Dario  speaking? 


RUBEN  DARK)  lU 

"I  have  caressed  great  nature,  and  I  have  sought  the 
warmth  o(  tlie  ideal,  tlie  verse  tlial  is  in  the  stars,  in  the 
depths  of  the  sky,  in  the  pearl,  in  the  profimditics  of  tlie 
ocean.  I  have  tried  to  forge  ahead !  For  the  time  of  great 
revolutions  is  approaching,  with  a  Messiah  all  light,  all 
striving  and  power,  and  his  spirit  must  he  received  with  a 
poem  that  siuill  he  an  arch  of  triumph  with  strophes  of 
steel,  strophes  of  gold,  strophes  of  love"  .  .  .  The  stran- 
ger tries  to  impress  a  higher  standard  of  art  upon  the  ruler. 
"Sir,  as  hetween  an  Apollo  and  a  goose,  choose  the  Apollo, 
even  though  the  one  he  of  terra  cotta  and  the  otlier  of 
marhle." 

A  similar  situation,  with  a  similar  defeat  for  the  stand- 
ard-hearer of  the  ideal,  occurs  in  El  Sdtiro  Sordo.  Before 
the  satyr-ruler  comes  a  poet  to  plead  his  right  to  remain  in 
tlie  forest  Kingdom.  The  poet  sings  of  the  great  Jove,  of 
Eros,  of  Aphrodite;  the  plea  is  listened  to  by  the  ruler's 
counsellors,  the  lark  and  the  jackass. 

\^'hen  the  poet  concludes,  he  says  to  the  satyr:  "Do  you 
like  my  song?  If  you  do,  I  will  remain  with  you  in  the 
forest."  The  satyr  turns  to  his  advisers,  and  from  the 
mouth  of  the  lark,  the  autlior  addresses  us: 

"Lord,"  said  the  lark,  trying  to  produce  the  strongest 
voice  from  her  throat,  "let  him  remain  witli  us  who  so  well 
has  sung.  His  lyre  is  beautiful  and  potent.  He  has  of- 
fered you  the  greatness  and  the  light  that  you  behold  in 
your  forest  today.  He  has  given  you  his  harmony.  Sire, 
1  know  of  these  things.  When  the  naked  dawn  approaches 
1  mount  the  high  heavens  and  from  the  heights  pour  down 
the  invisible  pearls  of  my  trills,  and  amid  the  morning 
brightness  my  melody  fills  the  air  and  is  the  joy  of  all 


132       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

space.  And  I  tell  you  that  Orpheus  has  sung  well, — that 
he  is  one  of  the  chosen  of  God.  His  music  intoxicated  the 
entire  forest  The  eagles  have  descended  to  circle  above 
our  heads,  the  blooming  bushes  have  gently  swayed  their 
mysterious  censers,  the  bees  have  left  their  cells  to  come 
and  listen.  As  for  me,  oh  Sire,  if  I  were  in  your  place, 
I  would  yield  him  my  garland  of  tendrils  and  my  thyrsus. 
There  exist  tw^o  powers:  the  real  and  the  ideal.  What 
Hercules  would  do  with  his  wrists,  Orpheus  accomplishes 
with  his  inspiration.  ...  Of  men,  some  have  been  bom  to 
forge  metals;  others,  to  wrest  from  the  fertile  soil  the  ears 
of  com ;  others  to  fight  in  bloody  wars,  and  others,  to  teach, 
to  glorify  and  to  sing."  But  there  is  the  ass  still  to  be  heard 
from;  he  is  not  even  heard;  he  shakes  his  head  in  negation, 
and  the  satyr  cries  "No!" 

This  pessimistic  note  is  somewhat  tempered  in  El  Velo  de 
la  Reina  Mab.  To  be  sure,  we  find  the  sculptor,  the 
painter,  the  composer  and  the  poet  all  starving  in  their 
lonely  garret,  but  the  blue  veil  of  illusion  is  cast  over  them, 
and  "ever  since  then,  in  the  garrets  of  the  gifted  unhappy, 
where  floats  the  blue  dream,  the  future  is  thought  of  as  an 
aurora,  and  laughter  is  heard  that  banishes  sadness,  and 
strange  farandolas  are  danced  about  a  white  Apollo.  .  .  ." 

El  Cancion  de  Oro  (The  Song  of  Gold)  is  spiritually  re- 
lated to  tlie  foregoing  pieces.  It  is  a  bitter  psalm,  ironical 
and  not  without  an  alloy  of  sincerity,  sung  to  the  corrosive 
power  of  gold.  The  note  is  one  that  is  often  sounded  by 
Dario  at  various  stages  of  his  life;  he  was  always  in  need 
of  money,  yet  usually  a  hater  of  it.  La  Muerte  de  la  Em- 
peratriz  de  China  (The  Death  of  the  Empress  of  China)  is 
notable  for  at  least  two  things;  in  the  first  place  it  contains 


RUBtiN  DARlb  133 

!  exquisite  bits  of  exotic  description  thai  outdo  even  the 
{  Nipponese  day-dreams  with  whicli  Casal  sought  to  sur- 
round liimself  in  daily  lilc;  it  reveals,  incidentally,  that 
perhaps  Dario,  like  more  than  one  of  his  preilecessors  and 
followers,  received  his  idea  of  the  Orient  from  Loti  and 
Judith  Gautier  rather  than  any  more  intimate  acquaintance, 
just  as  their  neo-IIellenism  was  a  Greek  spirit  that  had  fd- 
tered  in  through  Italy  and  France,  The  tale  seems,  too,  to 
represent,  symbolically,  the  interference  of  woman  in  man's 
creative  life.  The  empress  in  question  is  a  gift  statue  to 
the  artist  husband;  wife  Suzette  slays  the  statue,  to  which 
she  fears  her  mate  is  becoming  too  closely  devoted,  and 
once  more  happiness  reigns  in  the  household,  as  a  result  of 
the  ruined  masterpiece. 

It  is  not  part  of  my  purpose  to  summarize  the  various 
productions  under  consideration;  what  is  important,  how- 
ever, is  to  seek  the  spirit  that  informs  them.  This,  I  be- 
lieve, is  a  glowing  idealism,  attended  by  the  passing  pessi- 
mism that  all  idealism  must  inspire.  There  is  a  mingling 
of  styles, — Hellenism,  realism  even, — but  at  bottom  it  is 
the  idealistic  note  that  rings  out  loudly,  whether  the  particu- 
lar bell,  so  to  speak,  be  such  a  hymn  to  Moriier  Earth  as  oc- 
curs in  El  Rubi  or  such  a  neo-Greek  evocation  as  La  Ninfa. 
There  is  an  important  autobiographical  element  which 
speaks  very  plainly  from  Palomas  blancas  y  garzas  mor- 
enas.  in  which  tlie  author's  love  affairs  come  to  light.  In 
addition  to  the  prose  tales,  the  non-poetic  section  of  the 
book  contains  a  dozen  brief  impressions  of  Chile,  where 
the  volume  was  printed. 

From  the  revolutionary  standpoint,  it  is  the  prose  part  of 
'    Azul  .  .   .  that  is  more  important;  the  language  had  become 


134       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

swollen,  limited  in  resources,  artificial  and  stagnant  in  ex- 
pression; in  these  tales  of  Dario  (which,  if  one  must  tell 
the  truth,  are  of  delicate  fibre  and  contain  little  to  set  the 
literary  world  afire  for  either  depth  or  intrinsic  signifi- 
cance) the  language  flows  with  remarkable  clarity.  Not  so 
much  for  what  they  say  as  for  how  they  say  it  are  the  tales 
of  Azul  .  .  .  worthy  of  notice.  They  represent  an  inno- 
vation in  style,  not  in  thought.  The  coming  master  is  pre- 
paring his  tools  for  the  sculpturing  of  the  new  statue.  .  .  . 
The  poetic  section  of  Azul  ...  is  named  the  Lyric 
Year,  from  the  four  chief  poems  there  included,  one  to  each 
season.  In  each  a  varying  phase  of  love  is  felt,  even  as 
the  spirit  of  the  ideal  breathed  in  the  prose  tales.  In  Pri- 
maveral  we  are  introduced  to  the  month  of  roses;  love  is 
fresh  and  sweet,  and  life  is  given  up  entirely  to  it: 

No  quiero  el  vino  de  Naxos 
ni  el  anfora  de  esas  bellas, 
ni  la  copa  donde  Cipria 
al  gallardo  Adonis  ruega. 
Quiero  beber  del  amor 
solo  en  tu  boca  bermeja, 
oh,  amada  mia,  en  el  dulce 
tiempo  de  la  primavera. 

With  Estival  the  springtide  idyll  becomes  the  ardor  of 
the  rutting  season.  And  into  the  love  of  tiger  and  tigress 
intrudes  the  Prince  of  Wales,  on  a  hunting  expedition,  which 
results  in  the  death  of  the  tigress;  the  tiger  returns  to  his 
den  to  dream  of  wreaking  vengeance  upon  the  tender  chil- 
dren of  man.  The  poem,  in  consonance  with  its  subject, 
departs  from  the  even  rhythms  of  Primaveral;  it  seems, 
in  part,  the  poetic  dramatization  of  a  fraternal  feeling  for  ' 


RUBEN  DARIO  135 

nature's  creatures  and  a  sense  of  man's  brutal  treatment 
of  tlie  brute.  The  third  of  the  seasonal  poems,  Qional, 
bears  as  its  epipjraph,  in  Latin,  the  words  Love,  Life  and 
Liglit.  It  is  th(*  afternoon  of  the  year,  and  of  life  as  well; 
a  fairy  friend  whispers  tales  to  the  poet, — tales  filled  with 
poesy,  with  what  the  birds  sing  and  the  zephyrs  bear,  what 
floats  in  the  darkness,  and  what  maidens  dream.  His  tliirst 
for  love  eannot  be  sated;  to  every  vision  that  the  fairy  re- 
veals, he  has  but  one  reply:  ""More!"  It  is  the  thirst  of  the 
ideal,  that  may  not  be  quenched.  Higher  and  higher  they 
flv,  until,  reaching  the  heights  above  all  human  yearnings, 
he  rends  the  veil  of  mystery. 

Y  alii  todo  era  aurora, 
En  el  fondo  se  veia 
Un  bello  rostro  de  mujer, 

"A  beautiful  woman's  face" — the  vision  that  so  often 
greets  Dario  as  he  seeks  to  rend  the  veil  of  life's  mystery. 
Not  even  winter  (Invernal)  can  extinguish  the  master 
passion.  Let  the  winds  howl  without,  so  long  as  love 
reigns  wuthin! 

Dentro,  el  amor  que  abrasa; 
fuera,  la  noche  fria. 

Of  the  four  seasonal  pieces  I  find  it  easy  to  select  a 
favorite:  Otohal.  It  is  the  most  original  in  conception  and 
execution;  it  is  most  prophetic  of  the  poet's  later  progress; 
it  is  most  human. 

Of  the  remaining  poems  in  the  collection,  it  will  be  worth 
while  to  indicate  a  few,  for  their  revelation  of  the  poet 
as  well  as  their  variety  of  construction.     Take,  for  example. 


136      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

such  a  piece  as  Anagke,  which  the  good  Don  Juan  Valera 
found  so  blasphemous  that  he  had  to  omit  the  final  lines  in 
his  quotation.  The  poet  is  in  a  characteristic  mood  of 
pessimism — the  mood  of  Estival,  only  one  that  expresses 
itself  with  less  artistry  if  more  point.  A  dove  is  singing 
an  exultant  song,  whereupon  a  hawk  swoops  down  and 
swallows  the  beautiful  singer.  And  the  Lord  in  heaven, 
meditating  upon  the  scene,  tells  Himself  that  when  He 
created  doves  he  should  not  have  created  hawks.  The  in- 
dicative thing  about  the  poem  is  not  the  shallow,  the  callow 
atheism,  which  was  not  characteristic  of  the  mature  poet, 
but  the  ideal  element, — that  same  element  which  is  so  prom- 
inent in  the  prose  tales  of  the  volume;  the  young  artist  is 
obsessed  with  the  ideal,  and  with  the  fear  of  its  extinction  by 
the  hawks  of  life.  There  are  sonnets  worthy  of  attention, 
particularly  that  on  Caupolican^  which  Gonzalez-Bianco  is 
anxious  to  make  out  as  a  testimonial  of  the  poet's  early 
"AiTiericanism"''  it  is  true,  none  the  less,  that  the  sonorous 
lines  are  worthy  of  Chocano,  and  seems  to  show  that  in  later 
following  the  Peruvian  poet,  Dario  was  returning  to  an 
earlier  style  of  his  own  that  had  long  lain  dormant.  There 
is  also  a  collection  of  five  sonnets  grouped  under  the  title 
Medallones,  and  the  men  to  whom  these  medallions  are 
penned  indicate  various  influences  that  the  poet  was  under- 
going: Leconte  de  Lisle,  Catulle  Mendes,  Walt  Whitman  (to 
whom  he  reverts  time  and  again),  J.  J.  Palma  and  Diaz 
Miron. 

Dario  has  himself  told  us  in  what  manner  he  considers 
Azul ...  a  work  of  innovation :  "I  abandon  tlie  usual -order, 

"  Cf.  Chocano's  later  sonnet  on  "Caupolican"  in  his  "Triptico  Heroico" 
{Alma  America) . 


RUiEN  9ARf#  137 

the  conventional  clirlu's;  1  give  attention  lo  the  interior 
nielotly,  which  contributes  to  the  success  of  the  rhythmical 
expression;  novehy  in  the  adjectives.  ...  In  Primavcral 
...  I  believe  I  have  sounihnl  a  new  note  in  tlie  orches- 
tration of  the  romance,  even  thougli  I  count  with  sucli  il- 
lustrious predecessors  in  this  respect  as  Gongora  and  the 
Cuban  Zenea.  In  Estival  I  tried  to  realize  a  tour  de  force." 
Among  the  metrical  innovations  critics  have  found  tlie  fol- 
lowing: the  verse  of  fifteen  syllables  (cf.  the  sonnet  Venus) ; 
the  verse  of  twelve  syllables  (cf.  sonnets  to  Walt  Whit- 
man and  Diaz  Miron;  M.  E.  Urena  points  out  that  this 
combination  had  been  employed,  tentatively,  by  Gertrudis 
Gomez  de  Avellaneda) ;  the  free  sonnet,  without  subjection 
to  iht^  traditional  distribution  of  rhymes  nor  the  invariable 
measure  of  the  hendecasy liable. 

"What  was  the  origin  of  the  novelty?"  asks  Dario,  in  the 
short  but  highly  instructive  History  of  My  Books.  .  .  . 
"The  origin  of  the  novelty  was  my  recent  acquaintance 
with  French  authors  of  the  Parnassian  school,  for  at  that 
time  the  Symbolist  struggle  had  scarcely  commenced  in 
France  and  was  not  known  outside,  much  less  in  our  Amer- 
ica. My  real  initial  inspirer  was  Catulle  Mendes, — a  trans- 
lated Mendes, — for  my  French  was  still  precarious.  Some 
of  his  lyrico-erotic  tales,  and  one  or  another  of  the  poems  in 
the  Parnasse  Contemporaine,  were  a  revelation  to  me." 
Dario  mentions,  too,  Gautier,  the  Flaubert  of  La  Tentation 
de  St.  Antoine,  and  Paul  de  Saint  Victor,  who  brought  him 
a  new,  dazzling  conception  of  style.  "Habituated  to  the 
eternal  Spanish  cliche  of  the  Golden  Age,  and  to  Spain's 
indecisive  modem  poetry,  I  found  in  the  Frenchmen  I  have 
quoted  a  literary  mine  to  exploit:  the  application  of  their 


138       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

manner  of  employing  the  adjective,  of  certain  syntactic 
methods,  and  of  their  verbal  aristocracy,  to  Spanish.  .  .  . 
And  I,  who  knew  by  heart  Baralt's  Dictionary  of  Gallicisms, 
understood  that  not  only  an  opportune  Gallicism,  but  also 
certain  peculiarities  of  other  languages,  were  most  useful 
and  of  incomparable  efficacy  when  appropriately  trans- 
planted. Thus  my  knowledge  of  English,  Italian  and  Latin 
was  to  serve  me  later  in  the  development  of  my  literary 
purposes.  But  my  penetration  into  the  world  of  French 
verbal  art  had  not  begun  in  Chile.  Years  before,  in  Cen- 
tral America,  in  the  city  of  San  Salvador,  and  in  company 
of  the  good  poet  Francisco  Gavidia,  my  adolescent  spirit 
had  explored  the  vast  forest  of  Victor  Hugo  and  had  con- 
templated his  divine  ocean,  in  which  everything  is  con- 
tained." 

It  is  important  to  remember  that  the  innovations  of 
Azul  .  .  .  were  not  so  revolutionary  but  that  Dario  was 
most  cordially  received  four  years  later,  upon  his  first  visit 
to  Spain,  by  the  standard  bearers  of  conservative  literature. 
During  all  this  time  he  was  making  a  study  of  foreign  let- 
ters, particularly  the  French  modems,  and  their  influence 
was  to  appear  not  only  in  his  critical  collection  called  Los 
Raros,  but  in  the  next  volume  of  poems,  Prosas  Prof  anas. 

Of  the  Rimas  by  Dario,  which  were  published  in  1889, 
it  is  necessary  to  say  but  little;  there  is  the  same  breath  of 
Becquer  as  hovers  over  his  earlier  poetry;  for  the  rest  the 
publication  is  exceedingly  difficult  to  procure. 


lUBEN  DARfO  139 

3.  Prosas  Profanas. 
( 1896) 

Dario  has  been  singularly  fortunate  in  his  critics.  The 
name  of  Valera  is  indissolubly  linked  with  Azul  .  .  .  ;  the 
name  of  Jose  Enrique  Rodo  is  similarly  inseparable  from 
Prosas  Profanas.  And  just  as  the  first  title  roused  a  cer- 
ulean eontroversy,  so  the  seeond,  with  its  double  contradic- 
tion, disturbed  most  and  enchanted  a  few.  I  say  double 
contradiction:  first,  because  apparently  the  name  means 
profane  prose,  which  is  disconcerting,  to  say  the  least, 
when  applied  to  poetry;  second,  because  in  reality  the  title 
is  of  far  deeper  significance.  "In  his  study  of  the  Old 
Spanish  poets  Dario  became  familiar  with  their  use  of 
prosa  in  the  sense  of  'poem  in  the  vernacular.'  He  knew, 
too,  the  sequences,  or  proses,  Latin  hymns  that  resulted  in 
the  setting  of  words  to  the  music  following  the  Alleluia  in 
the  Roman  Catholic  liturgy,  a  practise  that  became  popular 
in  tlie  early  10th  century.  That  the  title  was  suggested  by 
these  sacred  proses  of  the  liturgy  is  clearly  indicated  by 
the  second  element,  profanas,  that  is,  'not  sacred.'  .  .  . 
Just  as  the  liturgical  hymns,  the  'sacred  proses,'  broke  away 
from  the  quantitative  meters  of  Latin  verse  and  came  to  de- 
pend for  their  rhythms  upon  accent,  so  the  'profane  proses' 
of  Dario  broke  away  from  conventionality  in  form  and  con- 
tent. 

Rodo,  like  the  tolerant,  broad  spirit  he  was,  enters  re- 
markably into  die  spirit  of  the  poet;  he  follows  him,  and 
does  not  seek,  like  Valera,  to  lead;  he  analyzes  with  a 

'  George  W.  Humphrey.    Ruben  Dario.     Hispania,  March,  1919.    Vol.  II. 
No.  2. 


140       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH- AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

loving  minuteness  and  out  of  the  evaluation  of  a  work  of 
art,  himself  produces  a  genuinely  creative  masterpiece  of 
criticism,  such  as  virtually  disarms  later  commentators. 
He  seems  to  have  said  all  that  could  be  said,  felt  all  that 
could  be  felt.  Only  because  there  was  a  later  Dario,  one 
that  grew  beyond  the  apostle  of  sheer  grace  and  beauty 
whom  Rodo  knew  in  Proses  Profanas,  has  Rodo's  critique 
become,  not  out  of  date,  but  incomplete. 

To  Rodo,  in  a  phrase  that  has  become  famous,  Dario 
was  not  the  poet  of  America.  But  must  poets  have  homes? 
The  poet  is  moreover  revealed  as  a  lover  of  luxury,  as  a 
select  spirit  destined  never  to  achieve  popularity  and  as 
perhaps  being  little  bothered  by  that  probability.  "Art 
is  a  fragile  object  and  Caliban  has  rough,  brusque  hands." 
The  crowd,  however  (and  Rodo's  point  is  of  primary  im- 
portance) may  be  abominated  in  art  and  yet  loved  in  most 
Christian-like  manner  in  reality.  To  tell  the  truth,  how- 
ever, Dario,  although  later  recognizing  his  need  of  the  mul- 
titude, was  always  inclined  to  an  aloofness  that  was  mir- 
rored in  his  work.  And  if  it  be  true,  as  Rodo  declared, 
that  Dario  loved  the  people  neither  in  art  nor  in  reality, 
there  was  a  change  on  the  part  of  the  poet,  as  we  shall  see 
very  plainly  when  we  consider  his  next  volume  of  poetry. 
Not  only  did  Rodo's  critique  stamp  upon  Dario  his  non- 
American  character,  but  it  also  made  him  definitely  the 
poet  of  the  swan.  "If  we  should  be  asked  for  the  animate 
being  that  should  symbolize  the  familiar  genius  of  his 
poetry,  it  would  be  necessary  for  us  to  cite, — not  the  lion 
or  the  eagle  that  obsess  Victor  Hugo's  imagination,  nor 
even  the  nightingale  beloved  of  Heine, — but  the  swan,  the 
Wagnerian  bird;  the  white  and  delicate  bird  tliat  surges  at   ' 


KUBLN  DARfO  141 

each  instant  upon  tlu>  ii)ainy  wave  of  his  poetry,  summoned 
by  his  insistent  evocation,  and  whose  image  might  be 
engraved,  on  that  day  when  poets  have  coats  of  arms,  in  one 
of  tlie  quarters  of  his  eseuteheon,  even  as  upon  Poe's 
eseuleheon  tiiere  would  be  engravetl  the  raven,  and  on 
Baudelaire's  the  pensive  and  hieratic  cat."  True,  of 
Prosas  I*iojanas;  perliaps  of  Dario  as  a  whole;  but  the 
later  Dario  knew  the  Higlits  of  the  condor  as  well  as  the 
plaeid  eleganee  of  the  swan. 

Rodo  saw  clearly  that  Dario's  Parnassianism  was  not 
mental.  **It  is  not  Parnassianism  extended  to  the  internal 
world,  in  which  ideas  and  feelings  play  the  role  of  canvas 
and  bronze."  He  recognized  that  there  was  a  broader  sig- 
nificance to  the  modernist  movement,  for  toward  the  close  of 
his  famous  essay  he  confesses  that  "I,  too,  am  a  modernista ; 
I  belong  with  all  my  soul  to  tlie  great  reaction  that  imparts 
character  and  meaning  to  the  evolution  of  thought  in  the 
final  years  of  tliis  century;  to  the  reaction  which,  originat- 
ing in  literary  naturalism  and  philosophic  positivism,  leads 
them,  without  a  loss  of  their  fecund  elements,  to  dissolve 
in  higher  conceptions.  And  there  is  no  doubt  that  the 
work  of  Ruben  Dario  responds  to  this  higher  meaning;  it  is 
in  art  one  of  the  personal  forms  of  our  contemporary  ideal- 
istic anarchism.   .   .   ." 

There  is  in  Prosas  Prof  anas  a  variety,  a  melody,  a  sup- 
pleness, that  was  not  evident  in  the  poetry  of  Azul.  .  .  . 
Prosas  Profanas,  indeed,  has  been  recognized  as  having  ac- 
complished for  poetry  that  same  innovatory  purpose  worked 
by  the  prose  of  Azul.  .  .  .  The  six  intervening  years  have 
been  active  ones  for  the  poet;  tlirough  the  maze  of  sorrows, 


142       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

travels  and  studies  he  has  found  himself.  His  spirit  has 
become  even  more  cosmopolitan,  and  at  the  same  time  more 
Gallicized.  His  art  has  become  deep  as  well  as  broad, 
and  tinged  with  that  symbolist-decadentism  that  he  trans- 
planted to  Castilian  soil. 

If  I  choose  for  comment  certain  of  the  poems,  it  is  not  so 
much  that  they  reveal  superiority  to  the  rest,  as  that  the 
chosen  examples  illustrate  important  attitudes. 

Thus,  in  Era  Un  Aire  Suave,  the  poet  feels  the  universal 
and  eternal  power  of  love,  with  its  cruel  golden  laughter. 
His  Eulalia  is  of  yesterday,  of  today,  of  tomorrow,  of  all 
climes,  but  ever  in  the  same  attitude : 

Fue  acaso  en  el  Norte  6  en  el  Mediodia? 
Yo  el  tiempo  y  el  dia  y  el  pais  ignore, 
pero  se  que  Eulalia  rie  todavia, 
Y  es  cruel  y  eterna  su  risa  de  oro! 

Divagacion  states  plainly  Dario's  conception  of  Hellenism. 
"More  than  the  Greece  of  the  Greeks  I  love  the  Greece  of 
France,  for  in  France  to  the  echo  of  laughter  and  play 
Venus  pours  her  sweetest  drink.  .  .  .  Verlaine  is  more 
than  Socrates;  and  Arsene  Houssaye  surpasses  old  Ana- 
creon.  Love  and  Genius  reign  in  Paris.  .  .  ."  Once 
again  it  is  universal  love  that  absorbs  the  poet: 


Amor,  en  fin,  que  todo  diga  y  cante; 
amor  que  encante  y  deje  sorprendida 
a  la  serpiente  de  ojos  de  diamante 
que  esta  enroscada  al  arbol  de  la  vida. 

Amame  asi,  fatal,  cosmopolitana, 
universal,  inmensa,  unica,  sola 


I 


RUBI^N  DAHlb  143 

y  toilos;   niisteriosa  y  crudita: 
amamo.  mar  y  iiubr,  ospuina  y  «>la. 

In  El  Rcino  Interior,  wliicli  firsl  reveals  what  lias  been 
termed  the  mystie  phase  of  Dario,  there  shines  through  the 
beautiful  symbolism  a  sense  of  the  inner  unity  between  good 
and  evil.  The  poet's  soul  gazes  through  the  window  of  the 
tower  in  whieh  she  has  dwelt  for  tliirty  years.  First  appear 
seven  white  maidens,  seven  princesses, — the  seven  virtues. 
The  seven  white  princesses  give  way  to  seven  red  youths, — 
the  seven  potent  capital  sins.  And  now  the  youdis  gaze 
upon  die  maidens  and  the  retreating  rout  is  lost  in  the  dis- 
tance. Which  would  his  soul  follow?  But  his  soul  makes 
no  reply.  Pensively  she  leaves  the  window,  falling  asleep 
in  the  tower  where  for  thirty  years  she  has  dreamed.  And 
what  does  she  dream?  Perhaps  we  may  guess,  for  she 
speaks  in  her  sleep  and  cries 

— Princesses,  enfold  me  in  your  veils  of  white! 
— Princes,  embrace  with  your  arms  of  red ! 

It  is  easy,  of  course,  to  over-interpret  such  poems  as 
these.  Why  interpret  at  all?  Yet  as  one  reads  and  re- 
reads El  Reino  Interior  he  feels  without  even  seeking  any 
esoteric  meaning,  that  there  is  far  more  beauty  than  meets 
the  eye.  If  a  most  rigid  choice  were  made  of  Dario's 
lyrics,  I  should  not  hesitate  to  select  this  as  one  of  the 
representative  pieces  that  combines  beauty  of  diction,  va- 
ried artistry  of  metre  and  beauty  of  thought.  This  aspect 
of  the  collection  appeals  far  more  to  me  than  the  pictorial, 
vocalic  effects  of  such  a  piece  as  the  Sinfonia  en  Gris 
^ Mayor.     There  is  astonishing  verbal  skill,  rare  technical 


144       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

facility,  but  it  is  the  stuff  of  which  poetry  is  made  rather 
than  poetry  itself, — or,  lest  that  sound  too  preceptive  and 
imply  a  cramped  definition  of  poetry,  it  is  impersonally 
brilliant,  and  once  its  technique  has  been  marvelled  at,  does 
not  linger  in  the  memory  like  other  poems  in  the  book. 
Not  so,  for  instance,  the  beautiful  sonnet  Margarita,  with 
its  tender  metaphor  of  the  maiden  who  was  plucked  by 
Death  even  as  she  plucked  the  petals  of  the  daisy,  to  find 
whether  her  lover  loved  her  or  not. 

It  is  in  the  Coloquio  de  los  Centauros  that  the  book 
reaches  its  highest  point.  For  the  Colloquy  of  the  Cen- 
taurs is  the  essence  of  the  poet's  personality  as  it  was  de- 
veloped up  to  that  date;  it  embodies  and  harmonizes  the 
varied  elements  of  the  collection.  It  is  classic  in  back- 
ground, yet  modern  in  feeling;  it  betrays  an  impeccably 
refined  taste,  yet  throbs  with  something  deeper  than  formal 
perfection;  it  is  rich  in  imagery  as  in  meaning;  it  blends 
the  old  and  the  new  in  the  eternal.  What  is  the  meaning  of 
the  poem?  That  is  for  every  reader  to  decide  for  himself. 
It  has  many  meanings,  because  tliere  centaurs  gather  to  dis- 
cuss our  whole  existence.  They  voice  the  poet's  own 
queries  before  the  enigma,  and  suggest  his  own  inadequate 
reply  which  is  but  another  question.  "Death  is  the  in- 
separable companion  of  Life."  says  Ameo.  "Death  is  the 
victory  of  the  human  race,"  asserts  Quiron.  "I)eath,"  ex- 
claims  Medon, 

No  es  demacrada  y  mustia 
ni  ase  corva  guadafia,  ni  tiene  faz  de  angustia. 
Es  semejante  a  Diana,  casta  y  virgen  conio  ella; 
en  su  rostro  hay  la  gracia  de  la  nubil  doncella 
y  Ueve  una  guimalda  de  rosas  siderales.  ^ 

En  su  siniestra  tiene  verdes  palmas  triunfales, 


1 


RUB^N  DARI'O  145 

Y  vn  sii  *lic>tia  una  I'opa  con  a<?ua  del  olvido. 
A  sus  pies,  coiiu)  nil  perro,  yaie  uri  ainur  tlorniiilo. 

AMICO 

Los  niisraos  dioses  buscan  la  dulce  paz  que  vierte. 

QUIRON 

La  pena  de  los  dioses  es  no  alcanzar  la  Muerte. 

"The  griol  ot  ihe  gods  is  tlieir  inabilily  to  die."  Is  this 
colloquy  the  voice  of  nature  pronouncing  the  vanity  of  all 
creation?  Is  it  tlie  poet's  attempt  to  reconcile  himself  to 
tJie  inevitable, — a  vain  struggle  that  consumed  his  whole 
existence?  Whatever  the  poem  may  suggest  to  its  many 
readers,  one  thing  I  believe  it  worth  while  to  insist  upon, — 
tliat  Dario  is  there,  listening  to  the  centaurs  and  quite  dis- 
appointed when  they  vanish  as  suddenly  as  they  came, 
leaving^Qic'air  still  tremulous  with  tHe^  query  they  brought. 

Note  the  beauty  of  the  opening  image : 

"On  the  island  at  which  the  argonaut  of  immortal  Dreams 
stops  his  shallop.  .  .  ."  Note,  too,  a  suggestion  of  that 
same  inner  unity  of  good  and  evil  in  Quiron's  statement 
that 

Ni  es  la  torcaz  benigna,  ni  es  el  cuervo  protervo: 
son  formas  del  Enigma  la  paloma  y  el  cuervo^ 

Neither  is  the  dove  benign,  nor  the  raven  perverse,     f     ^f^*" 
Both^lhe  dove  and  the  raven  are  forms  of  the  Enigma.  \     -t'?,^''-^     » 

Among  the  technical  innovations  of  Prosas  Prof  anas  have 
been  noted  the  following:  a  new  musicalily  of  verse, — new 
strophic  forms,  such  as  the  single-rhymed  tercet, — the  met- 


146       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

rical  interruption  of  the  grammaticaL-connection, — free 
moveme»t  of  the  caesura,  considered  independently  of  the 
pauses  in  meaning.  "It  should  be  noted,"  says  M.  E. 
Urena,  "that  the  monorhymed  tercet  had  already  been  em- 
ployed by  Julian  del  Casal  in  his  En  El  Campo,  although 
not  in  dodecasyllables,  as  in  Ruben  Dario's  El  Faisdn. 
Nevertheless,  Ruben  Dario  communicates  to  this  strophic 
combination  a  singular  animation  and  flexibility.  More- 
over, although  the  anapestic  hendecasyllable,  employed  by 
Ruben  Dario  in  the  Portico  ^  to  the  book  En  Tropel,  by  Sal- 
vador Rueda,  is  not  an  invention,  it  possesses  all  the  char- 
acter of  a  most  valuable  resurrection;  and  although  a 
young  modernist,  Carlos  Albert  Becu  was,  as  Dario  himself 
declares  in  his  autobiography,  the  first  to  employ  free  metre 
in  Castilian,  and  although  before  Dario,  tlie  Bolivian  Ri- 
cardo  Jaimes  Freyre  used  this  new  form,  the  tendency  to 
free  metre  is  already  evident  in  La  Pdgina  Blanca.  The 
metrical  combination  of  the  Response  a  Verlaine,  derived 
from  an  analogous  French  metre,  had  the  character  of  a 
genuine  novelty  in  Castilian."  ^ 

It  is  now  a  platitude  of  Spanish  criticism  that  Dario's 
metrical  innovations  were  in  reality  renovations.  We  have 
seen  from  his  autobiography  that  this  purpose  of  expand- 
ing the  expressional  powers  of  Castilian  prose  and  poetry 
became  early  a  conscious  program,  and  was  founded  upon 
a  thorough  knowledge  of  the  past.  It  is  equally  instruc- 
tive to  recall  that,  much  as  the  Symbolists  and  Decadents 

8  It  is  this  poem  which  is  looked  upon  as  having  introduced  modernism 
into  Spain. 

^  Dario's  autobiographical  references  to  Prosas  Projanas  may  be  found 
in  his  Vida,  pages  177  to  186.  Unbelievable  as  it  may  seem,  the  poems 
were  for  the  most  psirt  written  in  haste. 


I 


RUBEN  DARIO  147 

I'ontributed  with  their  deep  sensitivity  to  musical  stimulus, 
they  (lid  not  oltcii  lead  Dario's  aulo-crilical  nature  into  llie 
absurdities  of  tlie  Kainbauds  and  iJio  Gliils. 

The  years  diat  passed  between  Azul  .  .  .  and  Prusa.s 
Projanas  luui  produced  such  a  crop  of  ''pseudo-modcrn- 
istas"  that  Dario,  in  his  preliminary  words  to  the  lalt(T 
book,  found  it  necessary  to  protest  against  the  insincere, 
merely  and  incapably  imitative  poetasters  who,  like  all 
parasites  of  the  new,  were  bringing  ridicule  upon  the  move- 
ment. He  deplored  tlie  general  ignorance  not  only  of  the 
aspiring  artists,  but  of  the  great  mass  of  professors,  acad- 
emists,  jounialists,  poets,  legal  lights  and  rastaquoueurs 
whom,  using  an  expression  of  Remy  de  Gourmont's,  he 
named  Celui-qui-ne-comprend  pas:  He-who-does-not-under- 
stand.^'^  And  there  is  another  type  of  ignorance  or  misun- 
ilerstanding  that  is  particularly  liable  to  interfere  with  tlie 
study  of  poets  like  Dario, — an  excessive  attention  to  innova- 
tions at  the  cost  of  the  poet  behind  tliem.  As  a  matter  of 
record  I  indicate  the  innovations,  but  let  us  not  deceive 
ourselves;  tliey  belong  to  history,  not  to  literature,  and  the 
poet  himself  later  protested  that  his  poems  were  born 
whole,  not  first  the  skeleton  of  form  and  then  the  flesh  of 

'**  After  Azul  .  .  .  after  Los  Raws"  says  Dario  in  his  Preliminary  Words 
to  the  Prosas  Profanes,  insinuating  voices,  good  and  bad  intention,  sonorous 
enthusiasm  and  subterranean  env^'— an  excellent  harvest,  solicited  that 
which,  in  all  conscience,  I  believed  neither  fruitful  nor  opportune:  a  mani- 
festo." This  he  refused  because  of  the  lack  of  an  adequate  audience, 
because  of  general  ignorance  even  among  creators,  and  most  important  of 
all,  because  "proclaiming,  as  I  proclaim,  an  acratic  esthetics,  the  imposi- 
tion of  a  model  or  a  code  would  imply  a  contradiction.  .  .  .  My  literature 
is  mine  in  me;  whoever  follows  my  footsteps  slavishly  will  lose  his  personal 
treasure  and.  page  or  slave,  will  be  unable  to  hide  his  seal  or  liver>'.  One 
day  Wagner  said  to  Augusta  Holmes,  his  disciple,  'First  of  all,  imitate  no- 
body, and  least  of  all,  me.'  A  great  utterance."  This,  too,  was  Ibsen's 
attitude  toward  the  pullulating  "Ibsenites,"  was  it  not? 


14S       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

thought.  There  is,  of  course,  a  natural  explanation  of 
Spanish  preoccupation  with  Dario's  technical  aspect;  he 
brought  freedom,  amplitude,  and  blazed  new  paths.  But 
within  that  freedom  he  spoke  of  his  age;  over  those  paths 
he  drew  new  vehicles  of  beauty.  And  after  all,  mankind 
feeds  upon  feelings  and  thoughts,  not  hexameters  and  hep- 
tasyllables.  I  would  not  be  understood  as  underestimat- 
ing the  technical  aspect  of  art.  The  temple  of  technique 
is  an  imposing  edifice,  but  a  god  must  dwell  within.  By 
all  means  let  the  temple  be  beautiful,  but  do  not  leave  it 
empty.  .  .  . 

Among  the  poet's  personal  observations  regarding  Prosas 
Prof  anas  are  his  relating  of  Era  Un  Aire  Suave  to  Ver- 
laine's  musical  theory,  and  to  the  music,  not  of  Wagner 
(as  has  been  written)  but  of  Rameau  and  Lulli.  Diva- 
gacion  he  describes  as  "a  course  in  erotic  geography."  The 
Sonatina,  the  most  rhythmical  and  musical  of  all  the  poems 
in  the  collection,  proved  most  popular  in  Spain  and  in 
Spanish  America.  In  El  Reino  Interior  he  points  out  the 
influence  of  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti  and  some  of  the  French 
Symbolist  leaders. 

Azul  .  .  .  had  been  a  rosy  dawn  after  a  night  of  uncer- 
tain wandering  and  doubt.  Prosas  Profanas,  a  dazzling 
noon  of  brilliant,   yet  cold  classic  sunlight.     The   swan 


sails  placidly  over  the  lake,  whose  waters  are  now  and  then 
ruffled  by  an  uneasy  ripple.  Over  both  the  early  books 
hovers  now  and  then  the  shadow  of  the  condor.  The  next 
volume,  however,  is  deep  afternoon;  jjiexejs^e_sapj)flife^ 
the  soul  of  hoj)ej  pov^rj^_there^are^toOj^iiiQme^^^^ 
choly  introspection.     If,  in  the  prexiQll£Lyolume».  Prance 


RUB^N  DARlb  149 

had  tauglit  him  imich,  here  life  is  at  once  his  slave  and  his 
master,  his  despair  and  his  joy. 

4.  Cantos  dc  I  ida  y  Espcranza  { 1905) 

The  nine  years  that  intervened  between  Prosas  Prof  anas 
and  the  Songs  of  Life  and  Hope  were  fraught  with  many 
changes.  The  Spanish-American  war  had  been  fought  and 
had  induced  in  the  younger  generation  of  Spain  a  deep 
pessimi^nl  that  turned  il  laioreign  channels.  Modernism, 
with  Prosas  Profanas,  had  made,  too,  a  successful  invasion 
of  Spain.  At  the  same  time  that  the  Spanish-American  na- 
tions sympathized  with  Cuba,  they  felt  a  fear  of  the  United 
States  whieli  has  as  yet  by  no  means  been  entirely  allayed. 
Dario,  by  tlie  force  of  world  events,  was  being  drawn 
closer  to  his  continental  brethren,  and  out  of  himself. 
The  days  of  the  ivory  tower  were  over;  his  muse,  while 
retaining  the  grace  and  elegance  of  the  previous  volume, 
gains  in  vigor  and  power.  The  poet,  at  bottom  always 
personal,  becomes  more  plainly  so;  his  inspiration  is  more 
mature,  his  hand  surer,  his  outlook  broader.  Quite  futilely 
Dario,  in  his  Prosas  Profanas,  had  expressed  dissatisfac- 
tion with  the  age  into  which  he  was  bom.  He  would  have 
been  a  poet  in  any  age;  he  was  rich  in  response  to  the 
most  varied  stimuli.  This  book,  in  which  there  is-more  of 
life  than  hope,  in  whjchjhe  intensity  of  the  rnelancholy  is 
more  impressive  than  the  exultant  optimisrn^^should  prove, 
even  without  thecollectionjyvhich  followed,  that  Dariq^was 
not  merely ^ihe  _poet  of  grace,  deljcacy  and_subtle  charm, 

hut  a  mndprn  ppr^nnaljly  ^ith  more  than  nnp  rhord  tn  his 

lyre^._  There  is  a  surprising  continuity  of  growth  in  the 


150       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

man,  as  is  shown  by  a  reading  of  his  works  in  chronological 
order.  We  have  already  noted  his  remarkable  faculty  of 
assimilation;  add  to  this  that  the  assimilation  was  com- 
plete; wherever  the  impulse  came  from,  it  had  been  trans- 
formed into  Dario's  own  before  it  issued  from  his  pen. 

In  Cantos  de  Vida  y  Esperanza,  then,  we  are  to  expect  a 
poet  of  the  multiform  early  twentieth  century,  afloat  upon 
the  turbulent  waters  of  a  ver}^  real  and  agitated  life.  It 
is  just  possible,  too,  that  Dario  was  affected  by  Rodo's 
criticism  of  Prosas  Prof  anas,  particularly  in  its  statement 
(made  without  reproach)  of  Dario's  non- Americanism,  as 
well  as  by  the  rising  note  of  Chocano.  At  any  rate  tlie 
poet  himself  is  deeply  conscious  of  the  inner  change,  which, 
with  greater  concision  and  beauty  than  any  critic  could 
state  it,  he  confesses  in  the  affecting  opening  poem  of  the 
collection.  ^^ 

11  The  various  verses  here  quoted  from  this  important  poem  may  be  read 
entire  in  Thomas  Walsh's  fairly  adequate  rendering  of  them  in  Eleven 
Poems  of  Ruben  Dario,  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  New  York  and  London,  1916, 
from  which  I  take  the  following  stcinzas,  corresponding,  in  order,  to  those 
given  above  in  the  original: 


I 


I  am  the  singer  who  of  late  put  by 
The  verse  azulean  and  the  chant  profane, 
Across  whose  night  a  rossignol  would  cry 
And  prove  himself  a  lark  at  morn  again. 


Within  my  garden  stood  a  statue  fair, 
Of  marble  seeming,  yet  of  flesh  and  bone; 
A  gentle  spirit  was  incarnate  there 
Of  sensitive  and  sentimental  tone 

So  timid  of  the  world,  it  fain  would  hide 
And  from  the  walls  of  silence  issue  not, 
Save  when  the  Spring  released  upon  its  tide 
The  hour  of  melody  it  had  begot — 


RUBEN  DARIO  151 

Yo  soy  aquel  que  ayer  no  mas  decia 
el  verso  azul  y  la  cancioii  profaua, 
en  cuya  noclie  un  risucndr  lialtia 
que  era  alondra  de  luz  por  la  nianana. 

The  very  first  lines  announce  a  change;  the  poet  of  yester- 
day's blue  and  yesterday's  profane  proses  prepares  us  for 
a  new  orientation  in  his  verse;  there  are  lines  of  sincere 
self-revelation  and  certain  overtones  of  repentance  or  apol- 
ogy for  previous  divagations.  There  is,  too,  I  believe,  a 
protest  against  the  narrow  conception  of  his  previous  work 
which  looks  upon  it  as  beautiful  Parnassianism  without 
any  essentially  human  implications. 

The  p»et  realizes  the  various  epochs  of  his  progress  as 
keenly  as  any  biographer;  this  is  but  another  indication  of 
the  self -consciousness  with  which  the  man  proceeded  in  his 
labors, — perhaps  not  only  self-consciousness  but  that  mor- 
bid introspection  so  characteristic  of  neurotic  natures.     He 
knows  that  he  has  been  dwelling  in  a  dream  garden,  com- 
panioned by  roses  and  swans;  that  he  has  been  very  much 
of  tlie  eighteenth  century  and  very  modern;  audacious,  cos- 
All  longing  and  all  ardor,  the  mere  sense 
And  natural  vigor;  and  without  a  sign 
Of   stage  effect  or  literature's  pretence — 
If  there  is  ever  a  soul  sincere — 'tis  mine. 


As  with  the  sponge  that  salt  sea  saturates 
Below  the  oozing  wave,  so  was  my  heart.— 
Tender  and  soft, — bedrenched  with  bitter  fates 
That  world  and  flesh  and  devil  here  impart. 

But  through  the  grace  of  God  my  conscience 
Elected   unto  good  its  better   part; 
If  there  were  hardness  left  in  any  sense 
It  melted  soft  beneath  the  touch  of  Art. 


152       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 


I 


mopolitan;  "with  Hugo  strong  and  ambiguous  with  Ver 
laine,  and  thirst  of  infinite  illusions."  H»  has  kno\vn 
grief  from  childhood,  and  his  youth — "was  mine  youth?" 
— still  sheds  a  f ragrancy  of  melancholy  from  its  roses.  He 
recognizes  the  element  of  chance  in  his  success  and  then 
comes  to  a  series  of  quatrains  that  is  exceedingly  important 
to  the  man's  critics  and  admirers: 

En  mi  jardin  se  vio  una  estatua  bella; 
se  juzgo  marmol  y  era  carne  viva; 
un  alma  joven  habitaba  en  ella, 
sentimental,  sensible,  sensitiva. 

Y  timida  ante  el  mundo,  de  manera 
que  encerrada  en  silencio  no  salia, 
Sino  cuando  en  la  dulce  primavera 
era  la  hora  de  la  melodia.  .  .  . 

Does  not  this  read  very  much  like  a  protest  against  hav- 
ing been  classed  as  a  poet  of  swans,  of  marmoreal  Pamas- 
sianism,  of  unfeeling  quest  of  beauty?  Does  not  this  seem 
to  proclaim  the  powerfully  human  impulses  that  were  con- 
cealed behind  a  mask  of  aloofness?  If  any  further  proof 
be  needed,  it  is  furnished  by  a  later  quatrain : 

todo  ansia,  todo  ardor,  sensacion  pura 
y  vigor  natural;  y  sin  falsia, 
y  sin  comedia  y  sin  literatura.  .  .  . ; 
si  hay  un  alma  sincera,  esa  es  la  mia. 

From  the  knowledge  of  the  man  that  has  come  to  us  through 
his  autobiography  and  through  his  friends'  comments,  I 
believe  we  are  justified  in  taking  these  words  literally; 
more  than  a  touch  of  imitation  there  may  have  been  in  the*^] 


Kl  BEN  DARK)  153 

early  work,  but  it  was  imtaiiitccl  by  inorely  literary  display; 
"if  tliere  is  a  siiicorc  soul,  that  sdu!  is  mine/'  Aiui  is  tbrre 
not  a  siliMit  rcproaili  in  Dario's  assertion  that  his  labors 
were  "witlunit  a  si«j;n  of  stage  effect  or  literature's  pre- 
tence"? lie  himself  could  perhaps  never  understand  why 
literature  and  sincerity  should  dwell  apart,  yet  is  here 
forced  to  make  a  distinction,  suggested,  most  likely,  by  the 
famous  line  in  Verlaine's  Art  Poetique:  "Et  tout  le  reste 
est  litterature." 

The  poet's  desire  for  escape  from  tlie  world  is  plainly  re- 
vealed in  his  confession  that  he  was  tempted  to  climb  into 
the  tower  of  ivory;  but  once  there  he  found  the  atmosphere 
!  depressing;   he  was  seized   with   hunger   for   space,   with 
I  thirst  for  the  heavens  as  he  peered  out  of  the  shadows  of 
I  his  own  abyss. 

Como  la  esponja  que  la  sal  satura 
en  el  jugo  de  la  mar,  fue  el  dulce  y  tierno 
corazon  mio  henchido  de  aniargura 
por  el  mundo,  la  came  y  el  infierno. 

Mas^^or  gracia  de  Dios,  en  mi  conciencia 
el  Men  supo  elegir  la  mejdr  parte; 
y  si  Imbo  aspera  hiel  en  mi  existencia, 
melifico  toda^critud  efArtei       " 

Again  I  choose  to  take  these  words  quite  literally;  the 
poet's  heart  was  in  reality  a  sponge  that  absorbed  all  out- 
ward influences  and  returned  them  to  the  world  purified  and 
unified  by  the  healing  power  of  Art.  It  is  just  this  sensi- 
tivity that  made  of  Dario  the  universal  poet  he  is;  that 
kept  him  from  becoming  a  mere  absorber  of  foreign 
models;  that  rendered  him  responsive  to  conflicting  cur- 


154       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

rents  of  modern  thought.  Yet  through  it  all  he  seems  to 
have  preserved  not  only  a  certain  pantheistic  faith  (a  faith 
with  which  his  early  religious  teachings  often  mingled 
quite  harmoniously)  but  a  veneration  for  art  that  amounted 
almost  to  a  religion, — that  perhaps  formed  part  of  his 
faith.  And  when  he  seeks  for  a  symbol  that  shall  best 
express  his  conception  of  Art,  the  name  of  Christ  occurs 
to  him,  and  he  writes: 

el  Arte  puro  como  Cristo  exclama: 
I  Ego  sum  lux  et  Veritas  et  vita! 

I    Pure  Art,  like  Christ  himself,  exclaims, 
(     I  am  light  and  truth  and  life! 

Sincerity  is  power,  he  proclaims;  to  this  power  must  be  i 
added  tranquillity.  And  for  that  tranquillity  there  must 
be,  too,  that  faith  without  which  Dario  could  not  have 
done.  "On  to  Bethlehem  .  .  ."  concludes  the  poem. 
"The  caravan  passes!"  Yet  it  is  a  halting  caravan;  his 
later  poetry  reveals  the  pauses.  Much  of  his  anguish 
during  life,  much  of  that  duality  of  his  nature,  was 
caused  by  the  struggle  between  such  opposing  attitudes  as 
Christianity  and  Paganism.  Some  element  of  that  strug- 
gle which  we  noticed  in  Gutierrez  Najera  was  undoubtedly 
present  in  the  poet;  mingled  with  his  religious  feelings  was 
more  than  a  tithe  of  childish  superstition,  neurotic  fear, 
need  for  solace.  And  this  feeling,  as  the  years  went  on, 
grew  more  intense  rather  than  less,  if  the  evidence  of  his 
poetry  is  to  be  credited.  His  optimism,  to  me  at  least, 
seems  as  often  as  not  to  be  the  clamorous  assertion  of  a 
wish  to  believe  rather  than  the  exultant  cry  of  the  genuine 
believer. 


RUBEN  DARIO  155 

We  have  seen  that  tlic  pool  had  been  classed  as  non- 
American;  to  some  tliis  implied  an  unjust  reproach,  and 
Justo  Sierra,  in  his  Prologo  to  Dario's  Peregrinaciones, 
written  a  few  years  before  the  publication  of  the  present 
vt)luine,  wrote  a  sort  ot  reply  to  Kodo.  "Yes,"  he  asserted, 
addressing  tlie  author  of  the  book,  "you  are  American, 
{)an-American,  for  in  your  verses,  when  they  are  attentively 
listened  to,  sound  oceanic  waves,  the  murmurs  of  forests 
and  the  roar  of  Andine  cataracts;  and  if  the  swan,  which 
is  your  heraldic  bird,  floats  incessantly  over  your  Hellenic 
lakes  in  search_of  j^edaj_the_condor  is  wont  to  descend  in 
winged  flight,  soaring^rom  crest  to  crest  in  your  epic 
strophes;  you  are  American  because  of  the  tropical  ex- 
uberance of  your  temperament,  through  which  you  feel  the 
beautiful;  and  you  are  from  all  parts,  as  we  Americans  are 
wont  to  be,  because  of  the  facility  witli  which  on  your  poly- 
chord  lyre  there  sounds  all  the  human  lyre,  converted  into 
your  own  music.  .  .  .  You  desire  to  belong  to  nobody;  the 
only  words  of  prose  that  I  found  in  the  Prosas  Profanas 
are  'praise  my  bridge  and  enclose  myself  within  myjower 
of  ivory,  and  these  words  clutch  at  the  heart.  Return  to 
humanity,  return  to  the  People,  to  your  father,  despite 
your  citizenship  papers  in  tlie  republic  of  Aspasia  and 
Pericles.  Poets  should  employ  their  lyres  in  civilizing,  in 
dominating  monsters,  to  draw  them  along  to  the  summit  of 
the  sacred  mount  on  which  the  Ideal  is  worshipped." 

\^  hether  it  was  Rodo  or  Sierra  (or,  what  amounts  to  the 
same  thing,  the  opinion  they  represented),  that  brought 
Dario  back  to  the  People,  the  note  is  loud  in  Cantos  de  Vida 
y  Esperanza.  The  poet  seems  to  have  abandoned  his  ivory 
tower  and  to  have  emerged  into  the  hurly  burly  of  life. 


156       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

He  has  now  become  undoubtedly  American  in  the  sense 
that  Sierra  gives  to  the  term,  and  signalizes  not  only  his 
Americanism,  but  a  certain  type  of  Hispanism,  in  poems 
that  are  as  remarkable  for  their  metrical  innovations  as 
for  the  indication  of  a  new  orientation  of  the  poet's  thought. 
Chief  among  these  is  the  Salutacion  del  Optimista,  with 
its  sonorous  hexameters  that  sounded  so  new  to  Spanish 
ears,  and  much  less  acceptable  than  Longfellow's  sim- 
ilar experiment  in  Evangeline  to  his  English  audience/^ 

Inclitas  razas  uberrimas,  sangre  de  Hispania  fecunda, 
espiritus  fraternos,  luminosas  almas,  salve! 

Porque  llega  el  momento  en  que  habran  de  cantar  nuevos  himnos 
lenguas  de  gloria.     Un  vasto  rumor  llena  los  ambitos; 
ondas  de  vida  van  renaciendo  de  pronto; 
retrocede  el  olvido,  retrocede  enganada  la  muerte; 
Se  anuncia  un  reino  nuevo,  feliz  sibila  suena, 
y  en  la  caja  pandorica  de  que  tantas  desgracias  surgieron 
encontramos  de  subito,  talismanica,  pura,  riente, 
cual  pudiera  decirla  en  su  verso  Virgilio  divino, 
la  divina  reina  de  luz,  la  celeste  Esperanza ! 

The  poem  is  a  ringing  call  to  all  of  Spanish  blood;  away 

12  In  his  Prefacio  to  the  Cantos  de  Vida  y  Esperanza  Dario  sends  an 
arrow  in  the  direction  of  the  academists.  Referring  to  his  use  of  the 
hexameter,  he  writes:  '"In  aU  the  cultured  countries  of  Europe  the  abso- 
lutely classic  hexameter  has  been  employed  without  causing  any  astonish- 
ment among  the  lettered  majority  and  least  of  all  among  the  well  read 
minority.  In  Italy,  for  a  long  time,  not  to  quote  old  writers,  Carducci  has 
authorized  hexameters;  in  English,  I  should  scarcely  dare  indicate,  through 
respect  for  my  readers'  culture,  that  Longfellow's  Evangeline  is  in  the 
same  verses  that  Horace  used  to  express  his  best  thoughts.  As  far  as 
concerns  modern  free  verse  ...  is  it  not  truly  singular  that  in  this  land 
of  Quevedos  and  of  Gongoras  the  only  innovators  of  the  lyric  instrument, 
the  only  liberators  of  rhythm,  have  been  the  poets  of  the  Madrid  Comico 
and  the  librettists  of  the  genero  chico?  ...  I  make  this  observation  be- 
cause it  is  form  that  first  appeals  to  the  crowd.  I  am  not  a  poet  for  the 
crowd.     But  I  know  that  indefectibly  I  must  go  to  it." 


RUBEN  DARIO  ir>7 

with  slotli,  difTuloncM*  and  apathy;  there  is  a  renaissance 
of  the  ancient  virtues  that  distinguished  Hispania;  it 
hreatlies  in  the  two  continents  wherein  repose  the  glorious 
l)ones  of  tlie  great  dead.  The  poet  seems  to  have  foreseen 
the  cataclysm  of  191  1;  he  speaks  clearly,  and  without  the 
haze  of  prophecy,  of  muffled  roars  heard  in  the  entrails  of 
the  world,  and  the  inmiinence  of  fatal  days;  amid  this  uni- 
versal upheaval  it  is  no  time  for  the  Spanish  race  to  re- 
main dormant;  let  tlie  blood  of  Spain  unite  and  yield  glory 
as  of  yore. 

The  same  stirring  note  resounds  from  A I  Rey  Oscar: 

Mientras  el  mundo  alicnle,  mientras  la  esfira  gire, 
mientras  la  onda  cordial  aliniente  un  ensueno; 
mientras  haya  una  viva  pasion,  un  noble  empeno; 
un  buscado  imposible,  una  imposible  hazana, 
una  America  oculta  que  hallar,  vivira  Espaiia! 

Dario's  faitli  in  the  Spain  that  will  discover  hidden  Amer- 
icas as  long  as  they  exist  to  be  discovered  is  a  faith  justi- 
fied by  history  and  by  contemporary  events.  Whence  de- 
rives the  inexhaustive  fecundity  of  that  wonderful  nation? 
Now  in  the  field  of  enterprise  and  discovery,  now  in  the 
realm  of  creative  art,  the  Spanish  nation,  despite  obvious 
drawbacks,  despite  obvious  retrogressive  influences,  bums 
with  an  inextinguishable  flame.  Retarded  by  illiteracy,  by 
reactionary  thought,  it  yet  produces,  in  our  o-vvn  day,  novels, 
dramas  and  poetry  that  are  the  delight  and  the  wonder  of 
all  lovers  of  the  beautiful. 

It  is  in  this  collection  tliat  Dario  voiced  a  fear  of  the 
United  States  which  he  later  modified.     The  early  senti- 
I   ments  occur  in  his  much-quoted  ode  A  Roosevelt. 


158       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

II  is  with  the  voice  of  the  Bible,  or  the  verse  of  Walt  Whitman, 

that  one  should  approach  you,  hunter! 

Primitive  and  modern,  simple  yet  complex. 

With  somewhat  of  Washington  and  more  of  Nimrod! 

You  are  the  United  States, 

you  are  the  future  invader 

of  that  ingenuous  America  in  whom  glows  indigenous  blood, 

and  which  still  prays  to  Jesus  Christ  and  speaks  Spanish. 

You  are  a  proud  and  powerful  exemplar  of  your  race; 

You  are  cultured,  skilful;  you  oppose  Tolstoi. 

And  dominating  horses,  or  assassinating  tigers, 

You  are  an  Alexander-Nebuchadnezzar. 

(You  are  a  professor  of  energy 

as  today's  madmen  declare.) 

You  believe  that  life  is  a  conflagration, 

that  progress  is  an  eruption; 

that  wherever  you  send  the  bullet, 

You  implant  the  future. 

No. 

The  United  States  are  powerful  and  great. 

When  they  shudder  there  is  a  deep  trembling 

That  passes  along  the  enormous  vetebrae  of  the  Andes. 

When  you  cry  there  comes  the  roar  of  the  lion. 

Hugo  told  it  to  Grant:     "The  stars  are  yours." 

(There  scarcely  shines,  as  it  rises,  the  Argentine  sun, 

and  the  star  of  Chile  surges  forth.  .  .  .)     \ou  are  rich. 

To  the  cult  of  Hercules  you  join  the  cult  of  Mammon; 

and  lighting  the  way  of  facile  conquest. 

Liberty  raises  its  torch  before  New  York.        '  i  ^- 

And  against  this  conception  of  Northern  America  he  places 
the  fragrant  America  of  Columbus,  Catholic  America, 
Spanish  America,  the  America  in  which  tlie  noble  Guatemoc 
said  "I  am  in  no  bed  of  roses."  ' 


RUBEN  DARIO  159 

That  America 
Which  trembles  \\\l\\  hurricanes  and  lives  on  love; 

\nd  with  a  final  warning  to  Roosevelt,  the  personification 
(to  him)  of  North  American  aggression,  he  places  his  ulti- 
nate  faith  in  God.*^ 

Is  it  too  great  a  fondness  for  the  Dario  of  personal  reve- 
.ation  and  of  tlie  inner  struggle  that  makes  us  see,  in  such 
3oems  as  the  Salutacion  and  A  Roosevelty  more  of  the  in- 
lignant  recipient  of  outward  suggestion  than  the  pure  poet? 
[  do  not  mean  to  question  the  genuineness  of  tlie  writer's 
/iews,  nor  to  deny  the  moments  of  intense  poetry  that  he 
tchieves  in  the  expression  of  them.  They  are  poetic,  how- 
ever, only  at  moments;  they  are,  if  I  may  so  express  it,  the 
3oeticization  of  views  rather  than  poetry  itself.  Tliey  are 
nore  important  as  revealing  the  man's  reaction  to  the  times 
han  for  tliat  intrinsic  merit  which  all  art  should  retain 
ifter  the  circumstances  of  its  origin  have  disappeared, 
't  may  be  said  that  despite  Justo  Sierra,  despite  Gonzalez- 
bianco,  despite  some  brilliant  poems  like  the  Canto  a  la 
Argentina,  Dario  is  not  the  poet  of  America,  and  that  Amer- 
— Dario's  own  America — gains  by  it.  On  the  other 
.....il  a  good  case  may  be  made  out  for  Dario  not  only  as 
he  poet  of  America,  but  as  a  poet  who,  in  a  few  notable 
)oetic  works,  voices  a  Pan-Americanism  that  is  less  am- 
)iguous  than  Chocano's.  The  more  one  reads  the  later 
)ario,  the  more  one  feels  that  this  is  the  true  man  in  all 
lis  expansion, — that  he  is  in  a  very  true  sense  universal, 

<  'ompare  the  similar  spirit  of  the  first  poem  in  the  group  called  Lo3 
-   (The  Swanst   in  Cantos  dc  Vida  y  Esperanza.    "Will  so  many  mil- 
of  us  speak  English?"    Recall,  however,  the  later  change  in  Dario'a 
liiiiude.     (See  section  on  El  Canto  Errante.) 


160       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

not  merely  in  the  statement  of  that  universality  (as  in  Cho- 
cano),  but  in  the  evidences  of  it  as  presented  by  poems  of 
intensity  and  depth  that  are,  in  the  words  of  Pedro  Henri- 
quez  Urena,  "beyond  art."  ^■' 

There  are  indications  in  the  volume  under  consideration 
that  for  all  Dario's  emergence  from  the  ivory  tower,  he  felt 
a  nostalgia  for  it, — that  his  regret  at  having  been  bom 
into  his  age  had  a  root  of  genuineness, — that  his  evocations 
of  the  past  are  but  another  proof  of  his  attempt  to  escape 
the  multifarious  life  about  him.  That  longing  is  evident 
in  such  poems  as  the  Letania  De  Nuestro  Senor  Don  Quijote] 
and  the  beautiful  sonnet  to  Cervantes.  "Pray  for  us  who 
are  hungry  for  life,  our  souls  groping  and  our  faith  lost 
.  .  .  for  we  are  without  soul,  without  life,  without  Quijote,^ 
with  neither  feet  nor  wings,  with  neither  Sancho  nor  God. 
And  then  comes  a  strange  denial  of  his  previous  studies  in 
foreign  letters  and  the  lore  of  contemporary  science. 

De  tantas  tristezas,  de  dolores  tantos, 
de  los  superhombres  de  Nietzsche,  de  cantos 
afonos,  recetas  que  firma  un  doctor, 
de  las  epidemias  de  horribles  blasfemias  ^. 

de  las  Academias,  R 

libranos,  senor!  x 

! 

What  is  the  poem  but  the  cry  of  an  agitated  soul  for  a  peace 
that  it  will  never  know, — for  a  peace  which  at  bottom  ii 
may  not  even  desire? 

Cervantes  it  is  who,  like  a  good  friend,  sweetens  his  bit 
ter  moments: 

14  In  a  letter  to  the  author. 


RUBEN  DARlb  161 

Though  heavy  hours  I  pass  and  mournful  days 

In  solitude,  (Vrvantos  is  to  mo 

A  taillilul  friend.     He  lijj;htens  j^looni  uilli  ^Ice; 

A  restful  hand  upon  my  head  he  lays. 

Life  in  the  hues  of  nature  he  portrays; 

A  golden  helmet  jewelled  brilliantly, 

He  gives  my  dreams,  that  wander  far  and  free. 

It  is  for  me  he  sighs,  he  laughs,  he  prays. 

The  Christian  and  the  lover  and  the  knight 

Speaks  like  a  streamlet  clear  and  crystalline. 

I  love  and  marvel  at  his  spirit  bright. 

Beholding  how.  by  mystic  Fate's  design 

The  whole  world  now  drinks  mirth  and  rich  delight 

From  deathless  sadness  of  a  life  divine! 

Something  of  that  "tristeza  inmortal  de  ser  divino"  at- 
aches  to  Dario's  ovm  labors. 

I  am  most  impressed  by  the  autumnal  spirit  of  the  vol- 
jme.  The  poet  realizes  that  youth  is  fast  departing  and 
^ings  it  his  sad  farewell  in  a  poem  {Cancion  de  Otono  en 
Primavera)  that  has  been  called  the  finest  Spanish  poem 
since  the  sixteenth  century.  That  praise  is  not  needed  for 
he  appreciation  of  its  haunting  beauty;  it  is  instructive, 
00,  that  the  poet  refers  to  that  varied  quality  of  his  works 
ivhich  has  not  yet  been  generally  recognized. 

Juventud,  divino  tesoro, 
ya  te  vas  para  no  volver! 
Cuando  quiero  llorar,  no  lloro.  .  .  . 
y  a  veces  lloro  sin  querer.  .  .  . 

Plural  ha  sido  la  celeste 
hibtoria  de  mi  corazon. 


162      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

Programa  Matinal  preaches  an  epicurean,  yet  utilitarian 
creed ;  Melancolia  presents  an  auto-diagnosis,  in  which  the 
poet  attributes  his  ailment  to  dreaming.  Poetry  becomes 
to  him  the  iron  shirt  of  the  thousand  points  that  he  wears 
next  his  soul.  Lo  Fatal  is  another  outburst  of  die  age-long 
query  addressed  to  the  Sphinx  of  Life.  \'iTience? 
Whither?  Why?  In  his  anguish  he  envies  the  tree  that 
is  scarcely  sensitive,  and  even  more  the  utterly  insensitive 
rock, 

for  there  is  no  grief  greater  than  that  of  living, 
nor  more  grievous  woe  than  conscious  life. 

To  be  and  yet  know  nothing,  to  have  no  certain  goal, 
and  the  fear  of  having  existed,  and  a  furdier  terror.  .  .  . 
and  the  certain  horror  of  being  tomorrow  dead, 
and  to  suffer  because  of  life  and  because  of  the  shadows, 

And  for  that  which  we  know  not  and  scarcely  suspect, 
and  the  flesh  that  tempts  with  its  fresh  clusters, 
and  the  tomb  that  waits  with  its  funeral  branches, 
and  not  know  whither  we  go, 
nor  whence  we  came  .  .  .! 

So,  in  the  Dulzura  del  Angelas,  he  reveals  the  search  for  a 
faith  that  he  cannot  feel,  and  in  Otras  Poemas  XIII,  the 
conflict  between  the  Pagan  and  the  Christian  ideal.  Was 
Dario  one  or  the  other,  or  was  he  both?  I  am  inclined  to 
the  paradoxical  solution.  If  ever  an  artist  displayed  an 
oscillation  between  opposing  tendencies,  Dario  did. 

The  poet's  pessimism  at  times  reaches  such  depths  that 
he  doubts  whether  life  itself  be  worth  while  {A  Phocas  El 
Campesino) ;  yet  he  is  capable  of  swinging  to  the  other 
extreme  and  glorifying  woman  in  a  most  passionate,  dar- 


RUBEN  DARIO  163 

ing,    aphrodisiac    hymn    to    ihc    flcsli.      {Otras    Pocnms; 
.  XVII.)      Here  one  is  more  inclined   to  agree  with  Gon- 
i  zalez-Blanco  when  he  terms  it  the  "most  original  thouglit, 
I  woven   into   the  most  vibrating  lyric  hymn   that   may  be 
culled  from  Spanish  poetry  since  tlie  epoch  of  Romanti- 
cism."    How  far  are  we  now  from  the  juvenile  misogynist 
of  Abrojos!     Witli  mastery  of  self-expression  has  come  a 
deep  sincerity- 

But  not  all  is  ardent  passion,  profound  melancholy,  sin- 
cere confession,  in  Cantos  de  Vida  y  Esperanza.  There  is 
something  of  the  pure  joy  of  creation,  the  joy  of  the  artist 
in  llie  domination  of  his  tools,  such  as  rises  with  orchestral 
claJigor  from  the  Marcha  Triunfal:  ^^ 

The  cortege  is  coming! 

The  cortege  is  coming!  Now  we  hear  the  clarions  shrill 
and  clear! 

The  sword-blades  announcing  themselves  in  vivid  reflections! 

Now  it  comes,  steel  and  gold,  the  cortege  of  warriors  vic- 
torious ! 

Now  it  passes  under  the  arches  adorned  with  the  white 
statues  of  Minerva  and  Mars — 

The  arches  of  triumph  where  die  figures  of  Fame  stand  with 
Uieir  trumpets  long  and  erect. 

The  solemn  glory  of  the  banners 

Borne  by  the  robust  hands  of  athletic  heroes. 

We  list  to  the  sound  of  the  arms  of  the  cavaliers, 

The  rattle  of  harness  masking  the  sturdy  war-horses. 

Their  trappings  scarring  the  ground; 

And  the  timbals 

That  accent  tlie  steps  with  their  martial  rhytlim. 

Thus  pass  the  fierce  warriors 

Under  the  arches  of  triumph! 

*5  Version  by  Sylvester  Baxter. 


164      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

In  clearness  the  clarions  are  lifting  their  voices: 

Their  chanting  sonorous, 

Their  calid  chorus 

Which  enfolds  in  its  thunder  of  gold 

The  flags  with  their  august  superbness. 

It  speaks  of  the  combat,  of  vengeance  that's  wounded, 

Of  manes  roughly  flowing, 

Of  plumes  rudely  tossing,  the  darts  and  the  lances, 

The  blood  that  in  heroic  crimson 

Has  been  laving  the  earth; 

The  black  death-mastiff's  that  come  with  War. 

The  golden  sounds 

Announce  the  triumphant 

Advance  of  glory; 

Deserting  the  peaks  that  guard  their  nests. 

Spreading  their  enormous  wings  to  the  wind, 

The  condors  arrive. 

And  Victory  has  come! 

The  cortege  is  passing. 

The  grandsire  points  out  the  heroes 

To  the  child  by  his  side: — 

Behold  how  like  the  old  man's  beard 

The  golden  curls  are  surrounded  by  ermine — 

Beautiful  women  bestow  their  garlands  of  flowers 

And  imder  the  porticos  their  faces  are  showing  like  roses; 

And  the  most  beautiful  one 

Smiles  on  the  fiercest  of  conquering  heroes. 

Honor  to  him  who  bears  captive  the  enemy's  banner! 

Honor  to  the  wounded  and  honor  to  the  faithful 

Soldiers  who  died  at  the  hands  of  the  foe; 

Clarions!     Laurels! 

The  noble  knights  of  glorious  days 

Salute  from  their  panoplies  the  new  wreaths  and  laurels: 

The  aged  knights  of  the  grenadiers,  stronger  than  bears, 


i 


RUBEN  DARIO  165 

Brothers  to  the  lancers  who  once  were  centaurs — 

The  trumpets  of  war  resound, 

I'illiiig  the  air  with  tlieir  clamor — 

To  those  ancient  knights. 

To  those  illustrious  swordsmen 

Wlio  incarnate  past  glories, 

Antl  to  liie  sun  that  today  illumines  new  victories  won, 

And  to  tlie  liero  who  leads  his  band  of  fiery  youths, 

To  him  who  loves  the  emblem  of  his  maternal  soil, 

To  him  who  has  struggled — rifle  and  sword  in  hand — 

Through  the  heats  of  red  summer, 

The  snows  and  the  winds  of  frigid  winter, 

Through  the  night,  the  frost, 

And  hatred  and  death 

That  his  country  may  live  immortal. 

They  salute  you  with  voices  of  brass, 

The  trumpets  of  war  tliat  are  sounding 

The  March  of  Triumph. 

There  is  a  lofty  hope,  not  unmingled  with  that  uncer- 
tainty which  flecks  all  virile  optimism.  Deeply  expressive 
of  this  aspect  is  the  Song  of  Hope,  which  I  present  in  the 
original  Spanish  and  in  Miss  Blackwell's  faithful  version: 

In  gran  vuelo  de  cuervos  mancha  el  azul  celeste. 
Un  soplo  milenario  trae  amago  de  peste. 
Se  asesinan  los  hombres  en  el  extreme  Este. 

iHa  nacido  el  apocaliptico  Anticristo? 

Se  han  sabido  presagios  y  prodigios  se  han  visto 

y  parece  inminente  el  retomo  de  Cristo. 

La  tierra  esta  prenada  de  dolor  tan  profundo 
que  el  sonador  imperial,  meditabundo, 
'  sufre  con  las  angustias  del  corazon  del  mundo. 


166      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

Verdugos  de  ideales  afligieron  la  tierra, 

en  un  pozo  de  sombra  la  humanidad  se  encierra 

con  los  rudos  molosos  del    odio  y  de  la  guerra. 

jOh,  Senor  Jesucristo!     iPor  que  tardas,  que  esperas 
para  tender  tu  mano  de  luz  sobre  las  fieras 
y  hacer  brillar  al  sol  tus  divinas  banderas? 

Surge  de  pronto  y  vierte  la  esencia  de  la  vida 
sobre  tanta  alma  loca,  triste  o  empedernida 
que  amante  de  tinieblas  tu  dulce  aurora  olvida. 

Ven,  Seiior,  para  hacer  la  gloria  de  ti  mismo. 

Ven  con  temblor  de  estrellas  y  horror  de  cataclismo, 

ven  a  traer  amor  y  paz  sobre  el  abismo. 

Y  tu  caballo  bianco,  que  miro  el  visionario, 
pase.     Y  suene  el  divino  clarin  extraordinario. 
Mi  corazon  sera  brasa  de  tu  incensario. 

The  blue  is  stained  with  a  vast  raven-flight; 
A  wind  blows,  threatening  pestilence's  blight; 
In  the  far  east,  men  slay  in  deadly  fight. 

Has  anti-Christ  been  bom  within  the  land? 
Portents  are  seen,  and  marvels  dire  and  grand. 
Christ's  second  coming  seems  to  be  at  hand. 

The  Earth  is  pregnant  with  so  deep  a  smart, 

The  royal  dreamer,  musing  sad  apart. 

Grieves  with  the  anguish  of  the  world's  great  heart 

Slaughtered  ideals  have  brought  sorrows  great; 

Hmnanity  is  prisoned  now  by  fate 

In  a  dark  pit,  with  hounds  of  war  and  hate. 


RUBEN  DARIO  167 

Lord  Christ,  why  dost  thou  wait  to  show  thy  might, 
To  stretcli  o'er  these  wild  heasts  tliy  iiaiul  of  light, 
And  in  the  sun  display  thy  banners  bright? 

Swiftly  arise,  ami  poor  life's  essence  free 
On  souls  that  crazed  or  sad  or  hardened  be. 
Loving  the  dark,  forgetting  dawn  and  thee! 

Come  then,  0  Lord,  tliinc  own  true  glory  show! 

Come  with  stars'  trembling  and  with  earthquake's  throe; 

Bring  love  and  peace  from  out  the  gulf  below! 

Let  thy  white  horse  the  prophet  saw,  pass  by. 
Thy  wondrous  clarion  sound  from  heaven  on  high! 
My  burning  heart  shall  in  thy  censer  lie. 

As  a  collection,  the  Cantos  de  Vida  y  Esperanza  is  the 
keystone  of  Dario's  poetical  arch.  It  most  exemplifies  the 
man  that  wrote  it;  it  most  reveals  his  dual  nature,  his  in- 
ner sincerity,  his  complete  psychology;  it  is  the  artist  at 
maturity.  There  is  a  wider  sweep,  a  subtler  music,  a 
closer  approach  to  universal  amplitude  of  expression  and 
linguistic  sonorit\\  In  the  Prosas  Prof  anas,  says  Gon- 
zales-Blanco, the  poet's  aesthetic  was  at  its  highest;  in  the 
Cantos  de  Vida  y  Esperanza  it  is  his  technique  that  tri- 
umph-^. Yet  how  much  more  than  technique  it  contains  in 
its  pages! 

In  his  History  of  My  Books  Dario,  considering  this  col- 
li ction,  gives  ample  evidence  of  its  source  in  a  fuller  life, 
of  his  struggle  between  Catholicism  and  Paganism,  of  an 
optimism  that  was,  it  seems,  more  a  manifestation  of  will 
than  of  conviction.  He  proclaims  himself  a  "Spaniard  of 
\merica  and  an  American  of  Spain,"  with  an  admiration 


168      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

for  the  racels  past  that  cries  out  "Hispania  forever!" 
Prayer  has  always  rescued  him,  he  confesses,  yet  he 
acknowledges  hours  of  doubt  and  rage.  "Certainly  there 
exists  in  me,  from  the  beginning  of  my  life,  the  profound 
preoccupation  with  the  end  of  existence,  the  terror  of  the 
unkno\Mi,  the  fear  of  the  tomb,  or  rather,  of  diat  moment 
in  which  the  heart  ceases  its  uninterrupted  task  and  life 
disappears  from  our  body.  In  my  desolation  I  have 
rushed  to  God  as  a  refuge,  I  seized  upon  prayer  as  upon 
a  parachute.  I  have  been  filled  with  anguish  when  I 
sounded  the  depths  of  my  faith  and  found  it  insufficiently 
sturdy  and  rooted,  when  the  conflict  of  ideas  has  caused  me 
to  waver  and  I  have  felt  that  I  had  no  constant  and  certain 
support.  All  philosophies  have  appeared  impotent  to  me, 
and  some  abominable  and  the  work  of  madmen  and  male- 
factors. On  the  other  hand,  from  Marcus  Aurelius  to 
Bergson,  I  have  greeted  with  gratitude  those  who  bring 
wings,  tranquillity  and  pleasurable  flights,  and  teach  us  to 
understand  in  the  best  way  possible  the  enigma  of  our 
earthly  existence.  .  .  .  And  the  principal  merit  of  my 
work,  if  it  possess  any,  is  that  of  a  great  sincerity.  .  .  ." 

Among  tlie  metrical  innovations  that  have  been  noted  are: 
free  metre,  both  with  and  without  a  rhythmic  basis;  hexa- 
meters; the  revival  of  the  hendecasyllable  without  accent  on 
the  sixth  syllable.  With  regard  to  the  hexameter,  Dario 
believed,  despite  authorities,  that  long  and  short  syllables 
exist  in  Spanish. ^^ 

16  Readers  especially  interested  in  Dario's  technique  will  find  in  Cejador 
y  Frauca,  op.  cit.,  pages  113  and  114,  a  detailed  summary  (quoted  from 
Lauxar)  of  the  poet's  innovations  in  metre  and  metrical  combination. 


RUBEN  DARIO  16<; 

5.  ElCantoFrrantc  {1907) 
And  Otlicr  Poems 

Before  approaching  Dario's  fmal  iu)tal)lc  collection,  let 
us  pause  for  a  moment  upon  the  Oda  a  Mitre  (1906)  to 
express  the  opinion  that  it  is  on  the  whole,  despite  its  lofty 
sentiments,  but  equal  to  the  nmch  earlier  Ode  to  Hugo. 
Dario  is  more  the  poet  than  the  statesman.  The  later  ode 
seems  labored,  ''d'occasion,"  and  lacking  in  the  enthusiasm 
of  tlie  poem  to  the  great  poet.  The  very  first  lines,  with 
their  quotation  from  Whitman's  ''Oh,  Captain;  oh,  my  cap- 
tain!*' as  well  as  the  epigraph,  from  Ovid,  seem  to  reveal  a 
groping  inspiration.  Dario  die  poet,  however,  will  out, 
and  it  is  the  poet  in  Mitre  that  he  most  admires. 

Y  para  mi,  Maestro,  tu  vasta  gloria  es  esa; 
aniar  los  hechos  fugaces  de  la  hora, 
sobra  la  ciencia  a  ciegas,  sobre  la  historia  espesa, 
la  eterna  Poesia  mas  clara  que  la  aurora. 

And  when  he  recites  his  litany  of  glory  to  the  master,  whose 
name  comes  to  his  lips  as  the  summit  of  human  fame? 
Victor  Hugo's. 

Gloria  a  ti  que,  provecto  como  el  destine  plugo, 
la  ancianidad  tuviste  mas  limpida  y  mas  bella; 
tu  enorme  catafalco  fuera  el  de  Victor  Hugo, 
si  hubiera  en  Buenos  Aires  un  Arco  de  la  Estrella! 

The  finale  is  a  noble  piece  of  writing  and  reveals  Dario  as 
a  thinker  whose  vision  could  see  beyond  even  continental 
frontiers.  ''Rest  in  peace!  .  .  .  But  no;  rest  not.  Let 
your  soul  continue  its  labor  of  light  unto  eternity,  and  let 


170      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

your  inspiration  guide  our  peoples,  friend  of  the  beauti- 
ful and  the  just,  of  the  good  and  the  true.  Your  pres- 
ence is  gone;  may  your  memory  grow  .  .  .  and  m.ay  your 
labor,  your  name,  your  prestige,  your  glory,  be  like  Amer- 
ica, for  all  Humanity!" 

The  poet  of  El  Canto  Errante  continues  the  varied  man- 
ner of  the  preceding  volume.  He  is  outspokenly  opposed 
to  any  narrowing  conception  of  art,  which  he  considers  "not 
a  combination  of  rules,  but  a  harmony  of  caprices."  He 
has  no  use  for  such  terminology  as  old  and  new.  "My 
verse  has  always  been  bom  with  its  body  and  its  soul,  and 
I  have  applied  to  it  no  manner  of  orthopedics.  Yes,  I  have 
sung  old  airs,  and  I  have  attempted  to  march  toward  the 
future,  always  under  the  divine  rule  of  music:  music  of 
idea,  music  of  verse."  El  Canto  Errante  secures  Dario's 
reputation  as  a  universal  poet  and  emphasizes,  perhaps,  tlie 
pantheistic  element  in  that  universality.  How  far  we  are 
from  the  ivory  tower  of  the  Prosas  Prof  anas!  As  the  poet 
says  in  his  Ballad  to  Martinez  Sierra,  the  exquisite  stylist 
and  translator  of  Maeterlinck,  the  best  muse  is  of  flesh  and 
blood.  Dario  has  now  become  a  wandering  Jew  of  poesy. 
He  is  the  singer  who  journeys  over  all  the  world,  "reaping 
smiles  and  thoughts,  amid  white  peace  and  red  war." 
Upon  the  elephant's  back,  through  vast  India,  in  palanquin 
through  China,  over  the  pampas  of  South  America, — every- 
where he  received  the  inspiration  of  his  universal  chant; 
Harmony  and  Eternity  is  his  device.  Here  we  may  see 
why  Dario  is  not  the  poet  of  America;  his  mission,  like  that 
which  he  discerns  in  the  soul  of  Mitre,  is  to  reach  humanity; 
he  feels  himself,  it  is  true,  American  in  spirit  and  in  ori- 
gin, but  his  patriotism  does  not  blind  him  to  the  larger  im- 


RUB^N  DARlb  171 

lance  of  the  human  unit.  His  travels,  perhaps,  havo 
alight  him  his  own  muhipliclty  as  well  as  the  essential 
iiiiilarity  that  undorlirs  human  divorsity.  That  is  why  he 
3  Majorcan  as  well  as  Oriental,  Greek  as  well  as  Spanish. 

SLINGS 

I  dreametl  a  slinger  bold  was  I, 
Born  'ncath  Majorca's  limpid  sky. 
With  .^toncs  I  galliered  by  the  sea 
I  hunted  eagles  flying  free, 
And  wolves;  and  ^vhen  a  war  arose, 
I  went  against  a  tliousand  foes. 

A  pebble  of  pure  gold  one  day 

Up  to  the  zenith  sped  its  way, 

Wlien  mid  the  heavens  blue  and  wide 

A  huge  jerfalcon  I  espied. 

Attacking  in  the  fields  of  air 
I  A  strange,  bright  bird,  of  plumage  rare — 

I  A  wondrous  bird;  its  course  on  high 

With  ruby  streaked  the  sapphire  sky. 

I  My  stone  returned  not;   but  to  me 

The  Cherub-bird  flew  fearlessly. 
Straight  to  my  side  it  came,  and  said: 
"Wounded,  Goliath's  soul  has  fled. 
I  come  to  thee  from  out  the  sky: 
Lo,  Davids  radiant  soul  am  If 

Apply  this  universality  of  humanity  to  the  sphere  of  na- 
ture and  a  modern  pantheism  is  the  result.  Measured  by 
the  totality  of  his  work,  which  forms  a  rarely  ordered  ris- 
ing curve,  Dario  is  notliing  less  tlian  cosmogonic;  he  identi- 


172      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

fies  himself  with  all  times,  all  moods,  all  animate  nature,  all 
peoples. 

It  is  this  sense  of  his  multiplicity  that  assails  him  in 
poems  like  Eheu. 

Here  by  the  Latin  sea, 
I  speak  the  truth: 

«  In  rock,  in  oil  and  wine 

I  feel  my  antiquity. 

Oh,  how  old  I  am,  good  God! 
Oh,  how  ancient  I  am !  .  .  . 
Whence  comes  my  song? 
And  I,  wither  am  I  going? 

The  knowledge  of  myself 
Is  costing  me 
Many  abysmal  moments, 
and  the  how  and  the  when  .  .  . 

Nor  was  this  mood  a  new  one  to  Dario,  in  whom  from  the 
very  first,  as  a  collation  of  his  poems  witli  his  autobiography 
may  show,  existed  the  germs  of  all  his  later  moods  and 
manners.  It  seems  that  his  frequent  questioning  of  sell 
led  to  a  deeper  knowledge  of  humanity.  It  has  been  sajc 
that  all  genius  is  neurotic.  Without  pressing  that  point,  ii 
is  quite  safe  to  assert  that  certain  types  of  neuroticism  en 
large  appreciably  the  sufferer's  view  of  himself  as  well  aj 
of  mankind.  As  early  as  1893,  in  Metempsicosis,  Daric 
had  imagined  himself  the  soldier  lover  of  capricious  Cle 
opatra,  and  had  evoked  the  past  through  the  mouth  of  the 
dead.  This  is  but  one  of  the  examples,  by  the  way,  of  th( 
poet's  early  control  over  that  interior  rhythm  which  h( 


rub£n  dari'o  n.i 

entioned  in  Prosas  Profanas.  And  what  a  haunting  v{- 
is  achieved  by  the  i  if  rain:  "Eso  fue  todo," — That 
/as  all! 

There  is  a  must  beautiful  n-turn  to  tlic  autochthi)nous 
heme  in  such  an  evocation  of  rare  pictorial  charm  as 
^utecotzimi,  in  which  the  beauty  of  tlie  thought  is  l)y  no 
neans  llie  least  of  the  beauties.  His  poem  to  the  pines  re- 
eals  him  in  an  attractive  mood  of  self-revelatory  tree 
worship: 

SONG  OF  THE  PINES 

0  pines,  O  brothers  of  the  earth  and  air, 

1  love  you!     Sweet,  good,  grave  are  all  your  words. 
You  are  a  tree  that  seems  to  think  and  feel, 
Caressed  by  dawns,  by  poets  and  by  birds. 

The  winged  sandal  touched  your  lofty  brows; 
You  have  been  mast,  and  stage,  and  judge's  chair, 
0  sunny  pines,  0  pines  of  Italy, 
All  bathed  in  charm,  in  glory,  in  blue  air! 

Mute,  sombre,  knowing  not  the  sunlight's  gold, 
Growing  'mid  icy  vapors  gray  and  dull, 
On  dreamy  mountains  vast — pines  of  the  night, 
Pines  of  the  North,  ye  too  are  beautiful! 

Like  statues  or  like  actors  in  your  mien, 
Outreaching  towards  the  kisses  of  the  sea, 
0  pines  of  Naples,  girt  about  with  flowers, 
0  pines  divine,  ye  haunt  my  memory! 

When  in  my  wanderings  the  Golden  Isle 

Gave  me  a  place  of  refuge  on  her  shore 

To  dream  my  dreams,  there  too  I  met  the  pines — 

The  pines  my  heart  holds  dear  forevermore. 


174      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

Dear  for  their  sadness,  beauty,  gentleness, 
Their  monkish  look,  their  hair  spread  wide  above, 
Their  fragrance,  as  of  one  enormous  flower. 
Their  sap,  their  voices,  and  their  nests  of  love. 

0  ancient  pines,  which  by  the  epics'  wind 
Were  swayed,  of  which  the  glowing  sun  was  fain! 
O  lyric  pine  trees  of  the  Renaissance, 
And  of  the  gardens  in  the  land  of  Spain ! 

Their  arms  aeolian  by  the  winds  are  stirred, 
Tossed  by  the  gusts  that  wake  there,  as  they  roam, 
Sounds  of  soft  plumage,  sounds  of  satin  robes. 
Sounds  of  the  water  and  the  ocean  foam. 

0  night  on  which  the  hand  of  Destiny 

Brought  me  the  grief  that  still  my  heart's  depths  hold! 

On  a  dark  pine  the  moon  her  silver  shed. 

And  by  a  nightingale  I  was  consoled. 

We  are  romantic.     Who  that  lives  is  not? 
He  that  feels  neither  giief  nor  love  divine. 
He  that  knows  naught  of  kisses  nor  of  song, 
Let  him  go  hang  himself  upon  a  pine! 

Not  I.     I  persevere.     The  past  confirms 
My  eagerness,  my  life  that  onward  flows. 
A  lover  I  of  dreams  and  forms,  who  comes 
From  far  away,  and  towards  the  future  goes. 

In  A  Colon  the  native  note  momentarily  becomes  one  of  pes 
simism  at  sight  of  the  internecine  strife  amid  the  Spanish 
American  peoples;  the  poet  recalls  the  memory  of  the  in 
digenous  chiefs  and  compares  them  most  favorably  with  the 
colonizing  whites;  he  is  sorry  that  the  continent  was  evei 
discovered  by  the  latter: 


RUBEN  DARK)  175 

IMuguiera  a  Dios  las  aguas,  antes  intactas 
no  reflejaran  nunca  las  blancas  velas; 
ni  vieraii  las  cstrellas  stupcfactas 
arribar  a  la  orilla  tus  taraholas! 

Crisloforo  Colombo,  pobrc  vMiniranlc, 
ruega  a  Dios  por  el  mundo  que  descubriste! 

"Christopher  Columbus,  poor  Admiral,  pray  to  Cod  for  the 
world  that  you  discovered!"  The  image  of  Columbus,  as 
of  Hugo,  accompanies  him  in  all  his  thoughts,  and  when 
he  salutes  the  volcano  Momotombo  he  sees  in  it  a  symbol  of 
tlie  two  great  men: 

Your  voice  was  one  day  beard  by  Chrislopber  Columbus; 
Hugo  sang  your  legendary  geste.     The  two 
Were,  like  you.  colossal,  Momotombo, 
mountains  inbabited  by  the  fire  of  God. 

Dario's  attitude  toward  the  United  States  did  not  remain 
that  which  he  so  forcefully  expressed  in  his  address  to 
Roosevelt.  In  his  SaliUacion  al  Aguila,  in  hexameters  that 
some  of  his  countrymen  have  found  superior  to  those  of 
tlie  Salutacion  del  Optimista,  he  intones  a  view  expressive 
of  greater  confidence  in  the  United  States,  as  well  as  of  its 
possibility  as  a  model  for  the  Spanish  Americans  in  cer- 
tain respects.  From  the  Yankees,  he  feels,  the  dreamy 
youtli  of  the  southern  continent,  with  so  marked  a  weakness 
for  rhetoric  and  ostentation,  may  learn  constancy,  strength, 
character.  The  Condor  is  not  the  Eagle's  rival,  but  its 
brother.  "May  Latin  America  receive  your  influence,  and 
may  a  new  Olympus  be  reborn,  peopled  with  gods  and 
with  heroes."     The  poem,  while  important  because  of  re- 


176       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

vealing  Dario's  altered  attitude,  does  not  strike  that  echo- 
ing note  which  rises  from  so  much  of  his  other  work. 
The  eagle  is  not  Dario's  heraldic  bird;  his  swan  is  more 
sure,  as  is  his  condor.  His  Pan-Americanism  at  times 
seems  an  utterance  made  in  compliance  with  outward  cir- 
cumstances rather  than  an  impulsive,  spontaneous  cry  from 
within.  Yet,  at  other  times  it  strikes  me  as  being  of  a 
powerful,  resonant  sincerity. 

The  Canto  a  la  Argentina  (1910)  is  an  inspiring,  poly- 
phonic, vast  hymn, — the  longest  of  Dario's  poems,  in  forty- 
five  stanzas  of  a  length  varying  from  eight  lines  to  seventy- 
six,  with  lines  of  from  six  to  twelve  syllables, — sung  as 
much  to  liberty  as  to  Argentina.  The  longer  Dario  lived 
the  closer  he  drew  to  that  crowd  which  he  thought  he  de- 
spised, and  the  more  Pan-American,  as  well  as  universal, 
he  became.  He  acquired,  too,  a  certain  noble  magnilo- 
quence that  one  might  scarcely  have  suspected  in  the  poet 
of  an  Azul  ...  or  of  Prosas  Prof  anas.  As  a  celebra- 
tion of  the  centenary  of  Argentina's  independence,  the 
Canto  is  fully  matched  to  its  lofty  theme.  There  is  an 
epic  sweep  to  the  sonorous  stanzas,  which  scatter  upon  the 
air  a  proclamation  of  freedom;  there  is  a  biblical  fervor 
that  welcomes  the  exiles  of  all  nations  to  this  new  Promised 
Land. 

"Here  is  the  region  of  El  Dorado,  here  is  the  terrestrial 
paradise,  here  the  longed-for  good  fortune,  here  the  Golden 
Fleece,  here  the  pregnant  Canaan,  here  the  resuscitated  At- 
lantis. .  .  ."  Here,  too,  is  the  land  "of  the  visionary 
poets  who  on  their  Olympuses  or  Calvaries  loved  all  the 
people,"  the  land  where  "is  reared  the  Babel  wherein  all 
may  understand  one  another." 


RUBEN  DAIUb  177 

In  strophes  that  scizo  with  rare  skill  upon  saliont  traits, 
e[iitomiziiig  a  national  character  in  each,  he  calls  upon  the 
Russian,  the  Jew,  the  Italian,  the  Spaniard,  the  Swiss,  the 
Frenchnum,  the  German, — all  the  disinherited  of  the  earth 
— to  come  to  the  arms  of  this  mother  nation.  To  the  Jews 
Argentina  becomes  Zion;  to  tlie  Spaniard  it  becomes  a  new 
Spain;  tlie  Plata's  shores  are  a  mystic  Eden  on  which  new 
Adams  shall  arise;  here  all  religions  shall  be  free. 

All  hail.  Fatherland,  for  thou  art  mine,  too, 
Since  thou  belongest  to  humanity; 
All  hail,  in  the  name  of  Poesy, 
All  hail,  in  the  name  of  Liberty! 

Tlie  Argentina  that  Dario  sings  offers  "homes  and  rights 
to  the  citizens  of  the  world" — Ave,  Argentina,  vita  plena! 
It  is  a  nation  of  peace,  arming  itself  only  for  defence: 

Be  a  sentinel  over  Life, 
Not  an  adjutant   of  Death. 

As  the  glorious  song  continues  the  harmonies  swell.  A 
beautiful  bit  of  imagery  visions  the  northern  and  southern 
Americas  as  the  huge  plates  of  a  continental  balance  hav- 
ing the  isthmus  of  Panama  as  the  needle;  into  these  plates 
each  continent  places  its  wealth  of  hope,  all  in  the  cause  of 
liberty;  this  Pan-Americanism  of  imagery  is  in  the  same 
long  stanza  explicitly  stated  in  terms  of  a  fraternal  union 
of  the  "Anglo-Saxon  race  with  the  Latin-American."  The 
poet's  aspiration  rises  higher  in  another  long  stanza  de- 
voted to  universal  peace:  "War,  then,  only  against  war! 
Peace,  so  that  thought  may  rule  the  sphere,  and  sweep,  like 
the  biblical  chariot  of  fire,  from  firmament  to  firmament. 


178       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

Peace,  for  the  creators,  the  discoverers,  inventors,  seekers 
after  truth.   .   .   ." 

Tlie  finale  is  a  quotation  from  the  national  hymn, — at 
once  the  source  and  the  goal  of  the  stirring  Canto: 

Old,  mortales,  el  grito  sagrado: 
Libertad!     Libertad!     Libertad! 

Hearken,  mortals,  to  the  sacred  cry: 
Liberty!     Liberty!  Liberty! 

The  poem  is  in  more  than  one  way  remarkable.  First, 
for  its  sustained  flight  and  the  genuine  inspiration.  It 
produces  upon  the  reader  the  effect  of  having  been  written 
(even  declaimed)  in  a  single  outburst.  Then  there  is  a 
human  outlook  which  contrasts  markedly  with  the  early 
aristocracy  of  the  singer.  To  me,  at  least,  the  interna- 
tional sentiments  ring  more  genuinely  from  these  lines 
than  from  earlier  ones.  The  Dario  who  began  as  a  Ro- 
mantic, then  ranging  tlirough  Parnassianism  and  Symbol- 
ism, here  seems  to  revel  in  the  pure,  untrammeled,  uncat- 
alogued  joy  of  creation.  El  Canto  a  la  Argentina  is  a 
logical  development  of  the  two  collections  that  preceded 
it. 

Later  poems,  as  well  as  the  various  posthumous  collec- 
tions issued,  add  little  to  the  poet's  fame.  The  master  was 
capable  of  writing  some  most  pedestrian  verse,  such  as  the 
poem  to  La  Gran  Metropolis,  in  which  New  York's  con- 
trast of  wealth  and  misery  is  sung  in  limping  verses  of  i 
lustreless  facture;  of  such  pretty  conceits  as  Dama,  in 
which  we  encounter  the  startling  metaphor 

The  smile  of  the  Gioconda 
Made  by  the  Virgin  Mary; 


RUBEN  DARK)  179 

\ 

he  can  become  most  iinpoetio  in  his  politiral  utterances,  as 
witness  tJie  verses  ol  tarewell  written  to  the  actress  Maria 
Uuerrero  shortly  after  the  publication  of  Prosas  Prof  anas. 
On  the  other  hand,  in  his  marvellous  Poema  del  Otofio  he 
intones  a  hymn  to  love  that  pulses  with  the  passion  of  even- 
tide; for  beneath  its  baeehanalian  rhythm  is  the  slackening 
gait  of  resignation.  In  two  lines  of  luminous  beauty  he 
^t'cnis  to  sum  up  the  mystery  and  tlie  enchantment  of  life: 

Tlie  clove  of  Venus  flies 
Above  the  Sphinx. 

Is  so  much  often  compressed  in  as  many  words?  And  in 
the  final  stanza  of  a  poem  that  tempts  one  to  complete 
transcription,  he  expresses  what  may  be  taken  as  the  es- 
sence of  his  poetic  career: 

En  nosotros  la  Vida  vierte 
Fuerza  y  calor. 
Vamos  al  reino  de  la  Muerte 
Por  el  camino  de  Amor! 

We  journey  to  the  realms  of  Death 
Over  the  pathway  of  Love! 

6.  Prose  Works 

\^lth  the  exception  of  the  prose  section  of  Azul  .  .  . 
Dario's  prose  labors  were  the  outgrowth  of  his  journalistic 
career. 

In  that  characteristic  tissue  of  paradoxes  which  Oscar 
Wilde  has  called  The  Critic  As  Artist,  Ernest  asks,  "What 
is  the  difference  between  literature  and  journalism?"     To 


180      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

which  Gilbert  facetiously  replies,  "Oh,  journalism  is  un- 
readable and  literature  is  not  read.  That  is  all."  Which 
explanation,  if  it  be  forgiven  on  the  Wildean  principle 
that  an  artistic  untruth  is  preferable  to  an  uninteresting 
verity,  omits  the  consideration  that  literature  and  journal- 
ism sometimes  become  interchangeable  terms.  How  differ- 
ent the  attitude  of  another  English  paradoxical  spirit,  Ber- 
nard Shaw,  who  has  told  us  in  his  Sanity  of  Art  that 

I  am  also  a  journalist,  proud  of  it,  deliberately  cutting  out  of 
my  works  all  that  is  not  journalism,  convinced  that  nothing  that 
is  not  journalism  will  live  long  as  literature,  or  be  of  any  use 
whilst  it  does  live.  I  deal  with  all  periods;  but  I  never  study 
any  period  but  the  present,  which  I  have  not  yet  mastered  and 
never  shall;  and  as  a  dramatist  I  have  no  clue  to  any  historical  or 
other  personage  save  that  part  of  him  which  is  also  myself,  and 
which  may  be  nine-tenths  of  him  or  ninety-nine  hundredths,  as 
the  case  may  be  (if,  indeed,  I  do  not  transcend  the  creature),  but 
which,  anyhow,  is  all  that  can  ever  come  within  my  knowledge 
of  his  soul.  The  man  who  writes  about  himself  and  his  own  time 
is  the  only  man  who  writes  about  all  people  and  all  time.  The 
other  sort  of  man,  who  believes  that  he  and  his  period  are  so 
distinct  from  all  other  men  and  periods  that  it  would  be  im- 
modest and  irrelevant  to  allude  to  them  or  a^ume  that  they  could 
interest  any  one  but  himself  and  his  contemporaries,  is  the  most 
infatuated  of  all  egotists,  and  consequently  the  most  unreadable 
and  negligible  of  all  the  authors.  And  so,  let  others  cultivate 
what  they  call  literature;  journalism  for  me! 

Not  that  Shaw  has  said  anytliing  really  new  in  this  gay 
paragraph.  He  has  merely  taken  what  most  of  us  always 
called  good  literature  and  labelled  it  "Journalism"  in 
order  to  emphasize  the  proposition  that  posterity  can  be 
interested  only  in  those  traits  of  man's  writings  which  are 


RUBEN  DARIO  1»1 

always  contemporary  l)ccaiise  always  luimaii.  Hut  there 
is  virtue  in  the  paradox. 

It  was  journalism  ol  the  Shavian  sort  that  was  produced 
by  such  reformers  of  j)rose  as  Gutierrez  Najera,  Marti  and 
Dario.  How  remarkably  little  of  what  Dario  wrote  as 
the  result  of  his  various  travels  and  studies  is  unworthy  of 
preservation  between  covers!  And  how  much  our  own 
journalists  and  magazine  writers  could  learn  from  his  paj];es 
in  the  way  of  enthusiasm,  patience,  human  insight  and  a 
sincerity  that  makes  few  sacrifices  upon  the  ahar  of  clever- 
ness and  mere  glitter. 

There  is  little  necessity  here  for  an  extended  considera- 
tion of  the  poet's  prose  works.  Everywhere  may  be  dis- 
cerned the  mind  of  the  poet  which  never  quite  lost  its  aris- 
tocratic cast,  however  much  it  recognized  the  value  of  tlie 
crowd  as  a  background  of  art.  If  I  mention  Los  Raws 
as  my  favorite,  it  is  because  in  that  book  Dario  the 
poet  and  Dario  the  extremely  sensitive  human  being  are 
most  evident  in  Dario  the  writer  of  prose.  It  is  question- 
able whether  such  a  prose  would  prove  acceptable  to  the 
majority  of  English  readers;  the  non-Spanish  element  in 
it,  of  course,  would  not  bother  them.  What  might,  how- 
ever, seem  not  fully  acceptable,  is  the  quasipoetic  glow  that 
shines  from  every  page.^'     It  was  of  this  book  tliat  William 

1'  "He  has  done  more  damage  witti  his  prose  than  with  his  verse  among 
the  young  writers,  especially  the  Spanish-Americans." — Cejador  y  Frauca, 
op.  cit.,  page  84.  Of  all  prose,  so-called  poetic  prose,  which  so  easily  de- 
generates into  airy  nothing,  is  most  difficult  to  manage.  How  much  harm 
has  Maeterlinck  worked,  for  example,  even  among  our  young  United  States 
writers,  especially  in  the  domain  of  the  one-act  play!  And  has  not  the 
influence  of  Dunsany  led  to  what  has  most  properly  been  dubbed  "Dun- 
sanity"?  But  "youth,  of  course,  must  have  its  fling"  and  will  cling  to  its 
prerogative,  whatever  the  influence  to  which,  parasitically,  it  attaches  itself 
in  quest  of  a  personality. 


182       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

Archer  said  that  from  what  he  could  half  make  of  the 
work  he  would  learn  Spanish,  to  read  it. 

7.  Summary 

Such  is  the  remarkable  figure  who  so  dominated  an  epoch 
that  his  very  name  serves  to  characterize  it.  Can  Dario 
really  be  pinned  down  in  the  critic's  sample  case  like  the 
entomologist's  butterfly?  Perhaps,  by  some  refinement  of 
the  critic's  art  an  appearance  of  inner  unity  may  be  im- 
parted to  the  man,  his  life  and  his  labors.  To  me,  how- 
ever, he  is  most  human  in  his  questionings,  his  fears,  his 
vacillations,  his  wavering,  his  unresolved  doubt.  From 
the  very  first  he  reveals  these  dominant  characteristics.  He 
is  of  the  past,  of  the  present,  of  the  future.  From  the  very 
nature  of  poetry  and  its  incapability  of  being  transferred 
into  another  tongue  it  is  inevitable  that  he  will  never  be  to 
other  peoples  what  he  will  remain  to  Spaniards;  that  is  one 
of  the  disadvantages  under  which  the  poet,  more  than  any 
other  creative  artist,  labors. 

He  crystallized  an  epoch;  he  transformed  a  language; 
he  infused  new  life  into  the  Castilian  muse;  he  retained  his 
own  personality  while  absorbing  all  the  currents  that  ap- 
peared during  his  career;  he  became,  as  we  have  seen,  a 
legendary  figure  even  during  his  own  life.     He  belongs 

Dario's  chief  prose  works,  outside  of  the  prose  section  which  forms  the 
greater  part  of  Azul  .  .  .  and  the  pamphlet  A  de  Gilbert,  1889  (written  on 
the  death  of  his  friend  Pedro  Balmaceda,  the  Chilean  poet)  are: 
Los  Raros,  1893  Parisiana,  1908 

Esparia  Contempordnea,  1901  El  Viaje  a  Nicaragua,  1909 

Peregrinaciones,  1901  Letras,  1911 

La  Caravana  Pasa,  1903  Todo  al  Vuelo,  1912 

Tierras  Solares,  1904  La  Vida  de  Ruben  Dario,  escrita 

Opiniones,  1906  par  el  mismo,  1912. 


RUB^N  DARI'O  1«3 

not  only  with  the  greatest  poets  tliat  have  written  in  the 
Spanish  tongue,  but  with  the  masters  of  universal  poesy. 
For  above  the  early  Parnassianism,  the  later  Symbolism 
anil  the  final  eoini)l(>x  humanism,  is  the  eternally  human  of 
a  poet  who  was  peculiarly  of  his  day  and,  by  that  same 
token,  of  all  ages. 


CHAPTER  III 

JOSE  ENRIQUE  RODO 

(1872-1917) 

In  many  respects  the  life  and  labors  of  Jose  Enrique 
Rodo,  the  noted  Uruguayan  philosopher  and  litterateur, 
present  a  marked  contrast  to  those  of  Ruben  Dario.  The 
Nicaraguan  poet  was  himself  a  human  lyre  upon  which  the 
passing  winds  and  events  played  their  own  subtle  songs ;  he 
responded  in  remarkable  degree  to  the  varying  influences 
of  his  time,  presenting,  in  that  response,  an  organic,  mental 
and  spiritual  growth.  Rodo,  no  less  responsive,  was  of  a 
more  Olympian  nature;  indeed,  if  we  are  to  use  a  phrase- 
ology that  Nietzsche  made  popular,  Dario  is  the  Dionysian 
spirit,  Rodo  'the  Apollonian.  Yet  they  are  both  men  of 
their  age;  both  represent,  in  varying  degree  and  in  most 
diverse  manifestation,  the  self-expansion  that  characterizes 
the  times. 

Despite  his  static  life  (which  was  altered  only  toward 
the  end  by  a  voyage  to  Europe  during  which  he  died,  at 
Palermo),  and  his  classical  serenity,  Rodo  was  one  of  the 
most  dynamic  spirits  of  his  day.  More  than  any  other  he 
realized  the  fluidity  of  modern  thought,  the  resurgent  self 
that  lay  at  the  bottom  of  the  modernist  movement  and  the 
general  overturn  in  the  world  of  ideas.  In  his  famous 
study  of  Dario's  Prosas  Prof  anas  he  proclaimed,  as  we  saw, 

184 


JOSE  ENRIQl'K  ROl)()  185 

his  own  modernism,  not  in  [he  si*nsr  of  the  word  tiial  con- 
aott's  a  prurionl  curiosity  for  llio  m'w,  hut  in  tluil  larger 
simiificance  which  aligns  a  man  with  die  spirit  of  the  ad- 
vancing age.  Rodo's  entire  philosopliy  of  unending  self- 
renewal  is,  indeed,  one  of  the  most  striking  aspects  of  the 
rch  for  self  which,  in  latter  days,  has  often  assumed  such 
ludicrous  forms.  He  is  the  philosopher  not  only  of  mod- 
ernism, but  of  eternal  youdi  in  the  realm  of  thought.  His 
work  reveals  how  complex  is  that  inner  self  which  once 
<t  irned  so  simple  to  fathom;  complex  not  only  in  its  mod- 
ernity, but  in  the  heritage  of  the  past  and  the  previsions  of 
the  future  which  lie  dormant  in  every  personality,  however 
humble  and  seemingly  sterile.  And  here  we  approach 
Rodo's  great  service  not  only  to  the  youth  of  Spanish  Amer- 
ica, but  to  the  youtli  of  the  world.  He  realized  in  most 
intense  degree,  as  we  shall  see  from  a  study  of  his  chief 
works,  the  infinite  possibilities  of  the  human  species;  while 
otliers  were,  properly  and  laudably  enough,  seeking  self- 
expansion  from  within  outward,  he  delved  from  without 
inward  and  revealed  the  immense  store  of  riches  there.  In 
such  a  sense  his  philosophy  (and  I  dislike  to  use  a  word 
that  seems  too  static  for  Rodo's  dynamic  method),  is  cen- 
tripetal. "Know  thyself,"  he  said,  with  Socrates;  but  what 
a  revelation  of  our  inner  selves  he  afforded  us!  And  he 
was  himself  the  best  example  of  his  method.  Not  until 
the  close  of  his  life  did  this  man,  who  had  preached  the 
necessity  of  travel  as  one  of  die  methods  of  self-renewal, 
stir  from  his  beloved  Montevideo;  yet  his  life  was  infinitely 
richer  than  that  of  many  a  globe-trotter.  It  was  a  con- 
tinuous expansion  in  both  directions;  it  was,  both  in  its 
daily  manifestations  and  in  tlie  thoughts  that  grew  out  of 


186      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

it,  a  splendid  example  of  what  I  have  called  creative  eclecti- 
cism,— a  harmonious  structure  of  the  present  built  upon 
solid  foundations  of  the  past, — perhaps  the  only  method 
possible  in  these  days  of  growing  complexity.  The  only 
metliod,  because  it  is  in  reality  no  method,  but  a  flexible 
view  that  permits  of  personal  variations  and  continuous 
change  in  accordance  with  new  knowledge.  There  is  noth- 
ing essentially  novel  in  Rodo's  protean  philosophy;  nov- 
elty long  ceased  to  bask  in  the  solar  rays.  What  is  re- 
freshing, vitalizing  and  stimulating  in  the  thoughts  of  the 
great  Uruguayan,  whose  intellectual  ancestry  dates  from 
Plato  and  in  our  own  day  from  Taine,  Renan  and 
Bergson,  is  the  emphasis  upon  the  necessity  of  constant 
self-renewal.  "0  rinnovarsi  6  morire,"  d'Annunzio  had 
written, — Self -renewal  or  Death — and  the  flaming  line  was 
taken  up  by  the  modem  spirits  in  all  the  Spanish  nations. 
Characteristically  enough,  however,  Rodo,  whose  thoughts 
are  upon  life  rather  than  death,  recasts  the  phrase  and 
transforms  it  into  "Reformarse  es  vivir" — Self-renewal  is 
Life."  That  is  the  idea  at  the  bottom  of  everything  Rodo 
wrote ;  that  is  his  great  contribution  to  the  Spanish- American 
renaissance  of  the  previous  century  in  its  later  phases. 
That  is  the  spirit  which  informs  his  essays  upon  repre- 
sentative Spanish  Americans,  his  criticism  of  Hispano- 
American  writers,  his  writings  upon  a  fuller  and  broader 
life.  Rodo  was  among  the  great  essayists  of  his  genera- 
tion; he  was,  speaking  for  Hispanic  America,  the  philoso- 
pher par  excellence  of  his  time,  called  into  being  (as  are 
most  great  men)  by  the  necessity  of  the  epoch.  And  al- 
though his  specific  ideas  may  be  altered,  subtracted  from  , 
and  added  to,  the  basic  element  of  his  philosophy,  from  the  ^i 


JOSE  ENRIQUE  RODO  187 

\cry  nature  of  its  call  Idt  continuous  readjustment  to  a 
t  hanging  environment,  will  itself  long  remain  unchanged. 
He  erected,  not  a  system  that  attempted  to  include  all 
psychological  phenomena  williin  the  hounds  of  a  rigid 
dogma — and  dogma  is  all  the  more  distasteful  and  harmful 
(or  being  philosophic  or  scientific — but  a  strangely  adapt- 
able stnicture  that  from  the  very  j)liability  of  its  nature 
may  better  resist  those  social  changes  that  spell  llie  down- 
fall of  more  rigid  systems. 


Modem  Uruguay  presents,  in  its  intellectual  develop- 
ment, a  spectacle  far  out  of  proportion  to  the  diminutive 
size  of  the  republic.  Out  of  years  of  strife  has  emerged 
a  nation  which,  in  the  last  half  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
produced  such  a  galaxy  of  important  figures  as  Samuel 
Blixen  and  Victor  Perez  Petit  (representative  of  the  nat- 
uralistic tlieatre),  Carlos  Reyles  (influential  in  the  field  of 
the  naturalistic  novel)  and  Julio  Herrera  y  Reissig,  a  mod- 
ernist poet  with  an  involved  style  quite  his  own.  Rodo 
is  of  their  generation, — a  generation  as  rich  in  intellectual 
struggles  as  the  previous  years  of  the  nation  had  been  in 
the  bloodier  contest  of  the  battlefield.  Everywhere  wages 
hot  discussion  of  literature,  politics  and  philosophy.  In 
the  very  year  of  Rodo's  birth  was  founded  the  University 
Club,  later  called  die  Ateneo  (Atheneum)  of  Uruguay,  in 
which  the  spirit  of  free  investigation  waged  combat  against 
cramping  mental  restrictions. 

Rodo  was  bom  in  Montev^ideo  t)f  an  T)ld  and  well-estab- 
lished house.     It  is  significant  tJiat  he  received  his  edu- 


188       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

cation  in  the  first  lay  school  that  was  established  in  the 
country.  At  home,  however,  he  was  brought  up  in  that 
Catholic  faith  which  is  the  common  emotional  and  religious 
background  of  all  Spanish-American  youth.  It  was,  as 
Rodo's  friend  Barbagelata  points  out,^  an  undogmatic,  non- 
clerical  Catholicism  that  young  Rodo  imbibed  from  his 
mother. 

The  future  philosopher,  however,  early  abandoned  his 
visits  to  the  church.  His  college  days  were  so  well  spent 
in  serious  study  that  he  was  accounted  a  prodigy  at  the  age 
of  twenty-one,  and  unlike  prodigies  at  that  age,  an  un- 
pedantic  one. 

Like  most  of  us,  he  consumed  not  a  few  of  his  youthful 
hours  in  the  composition  of  verse.  One  of  the  sonnets  of 
these  early  days  gives  us  a  hint  as  to  his  early  readings,  and 
as  to  something  more  which,  strangely  enough,  his  numer- 
ous commentators  seem  to  have  overlooked.  Let  us  first 
read  the  sonnet: 

De  la  dichosa  edad  en  los  albores 
Amo  a  Perrault  mi  ingenua  fantasia, 
Mago  que  en  torno  de  mi  sien  tendia 
Gasas  de  luz  y  flecos  de  colores. 

Del  sol  de  adolescencia  en  los  ardores 
Fue  Lamartine  mi  carinoso  guia 
Jocelyn  propicio,  bajo  la  umbria 
Fronda  vernal,  mis  ocios  sonadores. 

Luego  el  bronce  hugoiano  arma  y  escuda 
Al  corazon,  que  austeridad  entraiia. 
Cuando  avanzaba  en  mi  heredad  el  frio, 

1  Prologo  to  Cinco  Ensayos,  by  Jose  Enrique  Rodo.    Madrid. 


JOSK  ENRIQUE  RODO  189 

Anu"  a  Cervantes — sensacion  mas  ruda 
Bus(iur  lucyo  en  Balzac  .  .  .y  hoy,  cosa  exlrana! 
\  uelvo  a  Perrault,  me  reconcenlro  y  rio!   .  .  . 

riiere  arc  several  noteworthy  things  about  the  sonnet, — 
iiol  as  a  piece  of  poetry,  but  as  a  bit  of  self-revelation. 
Notice  tliat  most  of  (lie  authors  named  by  Rodo  are  French. 
Notice,  too,  the  implication  of  the  literary  circle  that  brings 
him  back  to  Perrault,  Charles  Perrault,  it  will  be  recalled, 
besides  having  been  the  match  tliat  ignited  tlie  famous  quar- 
rel between  the  Moderns  and  the  Ancients  in  seventeenth- 
century  France,  was  the  author  of  charming  fairy-tale 
adaptations  that  have  been  the  delight  of  childhood  for 
many  generations.  Is  not  this  return  of  Rodo  to  the  author 
of  childhood  days  symbolic  of  Rodo's  own  eternal  youth? 
And  may  he  not  have  received  something  of  the  fairy 
character  tliat  informs  his  beautiful  parables  from  the  de- 
light of  his  early  days  and  his  later  ones? 

Rodo,  in  the  sonnet  quoted  above,  speaks  of  laughing. 
His  friend  Barbegelata  is  thereby  led  to  remark  that  the 
philosopher  rarely  laughed,  and  when  he  did,  it  was  a  soft, 
almost  noiseless  phenomenon.  ''Those  who  were  his 
students  at  tlie  time  he  gave  his  most  absorbing  lectures  in 
literature  at  the  University  of  Montevideo,  never  saw  him 
laugh  in  the  professorial  chair,  and  all  admired  the  gravity, 
untainted  by  petulancy,  of  that  twenty-six-year-old  mas- 
ter. .  .  ." 

In  1901  Rodo  abandoned  teaching  for  politics.  It  was 
for  the  Revista  i\acional  de  Literature  y  Ciencias  Sociales 
(founded  in  collaboration  with  the  brotliers  Martinez  Vigil 
and  Victor  Perez  Petit),  that  he  wrote  much  of  his  work, 
which   is   reproduced   in    his   collection,   El  Mirador  de 


190      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

Prospero.  It  is  with  this  review  that  Rodo's  fame  began 
to  grow,  and  his  home  on  la  calle  Cerrito  in  the  old  section 
of  Montevideo  soon  became  a  literary  shrine  whither  jour- 
neyed countless  publications  and  letters  from  all  parts  of 
the  continent. 

"The  correspondence  of  the  creator  of  Ariel,"  wrote 
Barbegelata  shortly  before  Rodo's  death,  "is  numerous,  and 
he  attends  to  it  personally,  without  a  secretary,  leaving  no 
interesting  letter  unanswered,  no  printed  matter  without 
its  due  attention,  no  manuscript  without  its  place  in  his 
files.  .  .  ." 

Rodo,  like  Dario,  had  a  powerful  effect  upon  Spanish 
prose.  Indeed,  Andres  Gonzalez-Bianco,  one  of  the  few 
Spanish  critics  who  has  made  a  serious  and  thorough  study 
of  Spanish-American  letters,  and  who  is  apt  to  wax  most 
enthusiastic  over  his  literary  predilections,  publicly  places 
him  upon  the  loftiest  pedestal  he  can  erect  in  the  gallery  of 
masters  of  style.  "I  have  called  him,"  says  Gonzalez- 
Bianco,"  ^  and  I  will  repeat  it  once  more,  "the  magician  of 
Spanish  prose,  the  publicist  who  writes  the  best  Spanish  in 
all  the  globe,  he  who  has  best  known  to  play  the  instrument 
of  our  language  in  all  its  mastery,  surpassing  Valera  in 
flexibility,  Perez  Galdos  in  elegance,  Pardo  Bazan  in  mod- 
ernity, Valle-Inclan  in  erudition,  Azorin  in  critical  spirit. 
.  .  .  He  lacks  certain  qualities  and  subtleties  of  one  and 
the  other:  Galdos's  creative  art,  Valera's  bland,  aristo* 
cratic  skepticism,  Pardo  Bazan's  spirit  of  observation,  Vallef 
Inclan's  dazzling  poetry,  Azorin's  assiduous  application 
.  .  .  but  who  could  have  imagined  that  beyond  the  sea 

2  Andres     Gonzalez-Bianco:    Escritores     Representativos     de     AmericOt 
Madrid.     Page  3. 


JOSE  ENRIQUE  ROIX)  l')| 

there  was  to  flourish,  at  the  very  end  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
lury,  the  greatest  prose  writer  of  llie  Castilian  hiii- 
fziiage?   .   .   ." 

As  with  Vargas  Vila's  glorification  of  Dario  as  the 
I  iiiqiie,  so  we  need  not  accept  this  fulsome  praise  of  Ro(h) 
in  its  entirety.  But  it  is,  like  all  such  laudation,  signifi- 
(ant,  and  here  doubly  so  since  it  comes  from  Old  Spain, 
which  has  even  now  much  to  forget  of  prejudice  against 
Spanish-American  letters,  and  much  to  learn  of  their  ex- 
cellencies. More  important  than  the  superlativity  of  the 
praise  is  the  fact  tliat  Rodo's  contribution  to  the  renovation 
of  Spanish  prose  was,  on  his  part,  a  conscious  program 
which,  in  his  ouii  words,  tried  to  return  to  Castilian  prose 
I'olor,  relief  and  melody,  to  infuse  it  with  new  blood,  give 
it  stronger  muscles.  For  such  a  purpose  he  felt  that  syn- 
tactic and  lexical  changes  were  necessary,  and  it  may  be 
said  that  his  final  result  was  superior  to  that  of  Dario 
iiiinself. 

It  is  not,  then,  surprising,  that  the  fetters  of  journalism 
-hould  have  chafed  him.  But  that  same  necessity  which 
forced  so  many  other  gifted  Spanish  Americans  into  the 

irms  of  literature's  sister  Cinderella,  constrained  him,  too. 

\nd  there  was  another  feeling, — one  similar  to  that  which 

rought  him  from  naturally  contemplative  life  for  a  while 
I'uto  the  arena  of  politics.     "To  be  a  writer,  and  not  to 

lave  been,  if  only  accidentally,  a  journalist  in  a  country 
like  ours,"  he  said,  "would  confer,  more  than  a  title  of 
-uperiority  or  selection,  a  patent  of  egotism;  it  would  mean 

hat  one  had  never  felt  witliin  him  tliat  imperious  voice 
ilh  which  the  popular  conscience  calls  those  who  wield 

he  pen  to  the  defense  of  common  interests  and  common 


192      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

rights  in  hours  of  tumult  and  agitation."  This  passage 
alone  should,  together  with  essays  like  Jacobinismo  y  Lib- 
eralismo  and  Trabajo  Obrero  en  el  Uruguay,  show  that  the 
writer  was  no  mere  tower  philosopher  (for  philosophers, 
too,  have  their  ivory  towers),  but  a  man  who  realized  that 
life  is  not  only  thought,  but  lived.  When  all  is  said  and 
done,  however,  his  gifts  were  those  that  are  bom  of  medi- 
tation. The  man  who  rarely  laughed,  who  (as  far  as  is 
known)  never  loved,  delighted  little  in  idle  talk  and  was 
fond  chiefly  of  reading.  From  intimate  acquaintances, 
however,  we  learn  that  like  Marti  he  was  a  fascinating 
conversationalist.  His  writing  seems  to  have  required  lit- 
tle polishing;  it  sprang  mature  from  a  mind  that  had  done 
all  the  editing  within. 

The  great  war  came  to  tear  Rodo  from  his  beloved  city 
and  sent  him  to  Europe  as  the  representative  of  the  well- 
known  Buenos  Aires  magazine,  Caras  y  Caretas.  He  weni 
directly  to  Spain,  remaining  there  almost  incognito  foi 
but  a  few  hours.  Thence  he  proceeded  to  Italy,  where  he 
was  overtaken  by  death  on  May  1,  1917,  at  Palermo.  He 
had  intended,  while  abroad,  to  issue  a  complete  edition  oi 
his  works,  and  did  not  to  the  very  last  lose  the  same  opti 
mism  that  characterized  him  and  leaped  from  him  into  thf 
bosoms  of  all  with  whom  he  came  into  intellectual  contaci 
through  word  or  book.  Rising  above  the  debris  of  tli( 
conflagration  he  could  behold  new  literary  ideals,  new  ar 
tistic  forms,  and  a  new  Spanish  America  at  last  achieving 
a  definite  intellectual  and  economic  personality. 


JOSE  ENRIQUE  RODO  193 

II 

The  man  Rodo  is  clearly  visible  in  his  literary  labors,  as 
i-i  eminonlly  fitting  in  an  apostle  of  the  fullest  expansion 
<>{'  personality.  A  thorough  examination  of  the  few  hut 
preeious  volumes  he  left  will  yield  not  only  a  fuller  un- 
derstanding of  him,  hut  of  ourselves.  Is  not  that  one  of 
the  great  tests  of  an  artist?  Let  us  consiih'r,  chiefly,  ArielA 
the  clarion  call  to  Hispano-American  youdi  which  contains' 
the  germ  of  the  master's  greatest  work.  Motives  de  Proteo; 
after  a  study  of  that  treasure-house  of  counsel  and  sugges- 

i'Ui,  we  will  turn  to  the  Mirntlor  de  Prospero,  wherein  are 
itliered  nmch  of  the  audior's  journalistic  labors.     Nor 

luill  we  pass  over  the  great  essays  upon  Dario,  Bolivar, 
and  Montalvo,  which  teem  widi  ardent  apostrophes  to  that 
freedom,  tolerance  and  expansion  to  which  Rodo  conse- 
(  rated  his  career.'^ 

In  one  of  his  first  writings, — El  Que  Vendrd  (He  Who 
W  ill  Come) — Rodo,  in  whom  the  literary  apostle  was  born 
very  early,  reveals  a  deep  sense  of  optimism  for  the  future. 
"Vihcn  the  impress  of  ideas  or  of  present  affairs  inclines 
my  soul  to  abomination,"  he  declares  to  the  new  prophet 
whom  his  lines  invoke,  "you  appear  before  my  eyes  in 
the  guise  of  a  sublime,  wrathful  avenger.  In  your  right 
hand  will  shine  the  Archangel's  sword.  The  purifying 
flame  will  descend  from  your  mind.  The  symbol  of  your 
-oul  will  be  contained  in  the  cloud,  which  at  the  same  time 

^  The  essays  on  Bolivar  and  Montalvo  belong  originally  in  El  Mirador  de 

Prospero;  they  are  more  easily  accessible  now,  together  with  Ariel,  D.irio, 

and  Jacobinisrao  y  Liberali^mo,  in  the  Cinco  Ensayos  published  in  Madrid 

f  by  the  Editorial-America,  of  which  the  directing  head  is  the  author  Kufino 

Blanco-Fombona. 


194      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

weeps  and  fulminates.  The  iamb  that  flays  and  the  elegy- 
composed  of  a  constellation  of  tear$  will  find  in  your 
thought  the  somber  bed  of  their  union. 

"At  times  I  imagine  you  as  a  sweet,  affectionate  apostle. 
In  your  evangelical  accent  there  will  resound  the  note  of 
love,  the  note  of  hope.  Upon  your  brow  will  glitter  the 
colors  of  the  rainbow.  Guided  by  the  Bethlehem  star  of 
your  word,  we  shall  be  present  at  the  new  dawn,  at  the  re- 
birth of  the  Ideal — of  the  lost  Ideal  that  we  goalless  trav- 
elers seek  in  the  depths  of  the  glacial  night,  through  which 
we  are  journeying, — the  Ideal  that  will  reappear  through 
you,  to  summon  souls  today  chilled  and  scattered,  to  a  life 
of  love,  peace,  harmony.  And  at  your  feet  the  waves  of 
our  tempests  will  be  hushed,  as  if  a  divine  oil  were  cast 
upon  the  waters.  And  your  word  will  resound  in  our 
spirits  like  the  tolling  of  the  Easter  bell  in  the  ear  of  the 
doctor  bent  over  his  draught  of  poison.^ 

"I  behold  only  a  hazy,  mysterious  vision  of  you,  such  as 
the  soul  intent  upon  rending  the  starry  veil  of  mystery  may 
picture  to  itself,  in  its  ecstasies,  the  glory  of  tlie  Divine 
Being.     But  I  know  that  you  will  come.  .  .  ." 

Was  it  not  natural  for  many  Spanish  Americans  to  be- 
hold in  Rodo  the  selfsame  literary  Messiah  of  which  he 
spoke  in  this  youthful  invocation?  For  he,  too,  brought  a 
renaissance  of  the  Ideal;  his  word,  too,  rose  like  a  star  of 
Bethlehem  upon  a  new  dawn. 

Between  El  Que  Vendrd  and  Ariel  intervened  but  three 
years;  yet  in  Ariel  we  almost  feel  that  "he  who  will  come" 
has  already  arrived. 

^  An  allusion  to  Faust. 


JOSE  ENRIQUE  RODO  10: 


1.  Ariel 


The  purpose  of  the  classic  essay  Ariel  is  at  once  ap- 
parent from  its  symbolistic  title.  It  is  a  manifesto  of  , 
Ariel  against  Caliban,  of  beauty  against  ugliness,  of  the 
spirit  against  a  myopic  utilitarianism.  I  have  said  mani- 
festo, yet  the  word  should  be  purged  of  its  propagandislic, 
partisan  flavor.  Rodo  is  deeply,  though  not  dogmatically 
or  denominationally  religious.  Like  so  many  of  his  con- 
tinental brethren,  he  broke  away  from  the  intellectual  fet- 
ters of  the  epoch,  but  most  unlike  them,  he  acquired  a 
serenity,  a  tranquillity,  a  spiritual  harmony,  that  rescued 
him  from  the  excesses  and  the  morbidity  of  so  many  mod- 
t  rnist  poets.  He  reveals  himself  in  Ariel  that  which  he  . 
asks  his  youtliful  audience  to  become, — a  glowing  idealist, 
mindful  of  tlie  utilitarian  element  in  life,  yet  considering! 
it  only  the  basis  of  a  higher  expansion.  Ariel  has  been 
railed  the  intellectual  breviary  of  Spanish-American  youth. 
That  is  a  beautiful  phrase,  indicative  of  tlie  unobtrusively 
religious  element  in  tlie  master's  injunctions;  and  if  the 
youth  of  Spanish  America,  which  is  more  or  less  naturally 
given  to  an  aversion  for  tlic  purely  material  considerations 
of  life,  is  in  need  of  the  counsel,  what  shall  we  say  of  our 
own,  to  whom  Ariel,  with  little  change,  might  become  no 
less  an  intellectual  breviary? 

The  thought  of  the  United  States,  indeed,  occurs  power- 
fully to  Rodo  in  the  present  essay  as  elsewhere,  and  he 
comments  upon  our  country  in  a  manner  that  reveals  him 
as  a  keen  student  of  modem  civilization.  He  recognizes 
our  power  of  carrying  tlirough  all  projects  of  a  practical 
nature,  in  which  the  will  is  the  dominant  force.     He  recog- 


196      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

nizes,  too,  our  lack,  as  a  nation,  of  spiritual  cultivation  and 
'refinement.  "The  will  is  the  chisel  that  has  sculptured  this 
people  out  of  solid  rock.  Its  salient  characteristics  are 
two  manifestations  of  the  power  of  the  will:  originality  and 
audacity.  Its  entire  history  is  the  manifestation  of  a  virile 
,,  activity.  Its  representative  personage  is  named  /  willy 
i  like  the  superman  of  Nietzsche.  If  anything  rescues  it  col- 
lectively from  vulgarity,  it  is  that  extraordinary  exempli- 
fication of  energy  which  carries  it  everywhere  and  with 
which  it  imprints  a  certain  character  of  epic  grandeur 
even  upon  the  struggle  of  interests  and  material  life.  .  .  . 
And  this  supreme  energy  ...  is  discoverable  even  in 
those  individuals  who  present  themselves  to  us  as  excep- 
tional in  and  divergent  from  that  civilization.  None  will 
deny  that  Edgar  Poe  is  an  anomalous  and  rebellious  indi- 
viduality within  his  people.  His  select  soul  represents  an 
inassimilable  particle  of  the  national  soul,  which  not  with- 
out reason  stirred  among  the  others  with  the  sensation  of  an 
infinite  solitude.  And  nevertheless,  as  Baudelaire  has 
deeply  revealed,  the  fundamental  note  in  the  character 
of  Poe's  heroes  is  the  superhuman  temper,  the  indomitable 
resistance  of  the  will.  Wlien  he  conceived  Ligeia,  the  most 
mysterious  and  adorable  of  his  creations,  Poe  symbolized 
in  the  inextinguishable  light  of  her  eyes  the  Will's  hymn  of 
triumph  over  Death." 

Yet  for  all  his  admiration  of  our  characteristics,  Rodo 
feels  a  certain  singular  impression  of  insufficiency  and 
emptiness  about  our  life.  Do  not  mistake  his  attitude  for 
the  carping  and  harsh,  if,  doubtless  genuine,  dislike  of  a 
Blanco-Fombona.  Rodo  holds  up  our  life  in  general  as  an 
I  example  of  a  people  without  any  deep  traditions  to  orientate 


JOSE  ENRIQUE  RODO  107 

it, — a  people  that  has  not  been  able  to  substitute  for  the 
inspired  idealism  of  the  past  a  disinterested  conception 
of  the  future.  "It  lives  for  the  immediate  reality,  and 
through  it  subordinat(\>^  all  its  activity  to  the  egotism  of 
personal  and  collective  well-being. — Of  the  sum  of  the  ele- 
ments of  its  riches  and  its  powers,  one  might  say  what  the 
author  of  Mcnsonges  said  of  the  intelligence  of  the  Marquis 
ii(^  Nobert.  who  figures  in  one  of  his  books:  it  is  a  h(\ip  of 
wood  which  it  has  been  impossible  to  ignite."  The  spark 
has  been  missing.  To  him  we  lack  tlie  poetic  instinct;  even 
the  North  American  religion  becomes  nothing  more  than 
**an  auxiliary  force  of  penal  legislation  which  wouM 
abandon  its  past  on  the  day  when  it  would  be  possible  to 
u'ive  to  utilitarian  morals  that  religious  power  which  Stuart 
Mill  was  so  desirous  of  endowing  it  with."  "' 

From  what  we  have  read  it  is  easy  to  see  that  it  is  not  the 
United  States  tliat  Rodo  will  point  to  as  the  inspiration  of 
■Spanish- American  youth.  He  frankly  considers  us,  for  all 
our  enormous  development,  as  yet  the  embodiment  of  a  will 
and  a  utility  that,  he  hopes,  will  some  day  become  intelli- 
gence, feeling,  idealism  as  well.  The  reproach  is  a  com- 
mon one,  often  levelled  at  this  country  through  a  sense  of 
•  nvy.  if  not  from  more  practical  motives  not  entirely  dis- 
sociated from  propaganda  in  its  worst  diplomatic  meaning, 
but  is  there  not  some  truth, — however  much  or  little, — at 
the  bottom?  Is  there  not  something  about  rapid  material 
progress  and  the  sense  of  power  it  confers  which  produces 
the  illusion  of  intellectual  superiority?  I  am  no  believer 
in  chauvinism  or  narrow  nationalism,  yet  I  cannot  share 

'  Rodo's  acquaintance  with   the  currents  of  our  national   t'lought   is  so 
*  intimate  that  he  quotes  with  disapproval  the  utilitarian  moral  of  the  once 
popular  Pushing  to  the  Front,  by  Orison  Swett  Marden. 


198      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

Rodo's  thoughts  as  to  our  future.  We  are  a  young  nation, 
a  nation  which,  to  make  use  of  a  paraphrase,  is  living  its 
Odyssey  before  writing  it,  yet  which  contains  every  posibil- 
ity  of  a  vast  continental  culture,  to  which  it  will  eventually 
attain,  either  despite,  or  because  of,  its  proud  materialism. 
Rodo  himself  would  be  the  first  to  recognize  that  it  is  after 
all  an  unhealtliy,  anaemic  spiritualism  that  does  not  rest 
upon  a  material  foundation.  However  much  mistaken  he 
may  have  been  in  his  views  as  to  our  immediate  future, 
his  objection  to  this  country  as  a  model  for  Spanish-Ameri- 
can youth  had  firmer  foundations.  There  is,  first  of  all,  the 
racial  difference,  which  naturally  accounts  for  a  good  deal 
of  the  South-American  preference  for  France  as  an  intel- 
lectual leader;  with  that  racial  difference  is  bound  up  the 
cultural  one  which  blossoms  from  it.  Witliout  agreeing 
then,  to  Rodo's  details,  we  may  lend  a  most  respectful  ear  . 
to  his  general  proposition,  and  yet  not  slight  our  own  na-  iH 
tion.  As  Dario  and  Chocano  have  realized,  Spanish  and 
English  America  may,  as  a  union  of  complementary  forces, 
accomplish  great  things. 

Just  as  readily  may  we  assent  to  his  views  upon  de- 
mocracy witliout  thereby  slighting  the  so-called  common 
people.  Rodo  is  no  believer  in  the  quantitative  democracy 
of  the  politicians.  He  desires  that  genuine  democracy 
which  is  inspired  by  a  true  appreciation  of  human  super- 
iorities,— a  democracy  in  which  intelligence  and  virtue  re- 
ceive their  authority  from  prestige  and  liberty.  And  with 
the  syncretistic  method  that  is  so  characteristic  of  his  eclec- 
ticism, he  roots  that  democracy  in  both  Christian  and  Pagan 
characteristics.  "From  the  spirit  of  Christianity  is  born, 
in  effect,  the  feeling  of  equality,  vitiated  by  a  certain  as-' 


JOSE  ENRIQUE  RODO  IW 

cetic  scorn  for  spiritual  selection  and  culture.  From  the 
lieritage  of  the  classic  civilizations  is  horn  the  feeling  for 
orcjei,  for  hierareliy,  and  religious  resi)eet  for  genius,  vit- 
ialeii  hy  a  certain  aristocratic  tlisilain  for  the  humble  and 
tlie  weak."  It  is  these  two  elements,  shorn  of  their  vitiat- 
ing factors,  that  will  be  harmonized  by  llie  future  civiliza- 
tion. . 

It  is  that  future  civiliz^ition  whii'h  concerns  Rodo  in  ' 
Ariel.  It  is  because  he  beholds  the  future  in  the  youth  be- 
fore him  that  he  counsels  them,  in  words  that  have  reechoed 
over  the  continent,  to  consecrate  part  of  their  lives  to  the 
non-material.  "Tliere  were,  in  antiquity,  altars  for  the 
'unknown  gods.'  Consecrate  part  of  your  soul  to  the  un-  ' 
known  future.  In  proportion  as  societies  advance,  the 
thought  of  the  future  enters  in  greater  measure  as  one  of 
the  factors  of  its  evolution  and  one  of  the  inspirations  of  its 
labors.  .  .  ." 

To  Rodo's  optimistic  vision  there  is  ever  present  the  . 
sight  of  an  immortal  Ariel  triumphing  over  the  temporary  j 
victories  of  Caliban.  Ariel  is  eternal  youth,  which,  as  a 
nation,  is  symbolized  by  Greece.  Yet  is  there  not  a  subtler 
symbolism  in  Rodo's  address, — something  he  himself  may 
not  have  caiight?  He  imagines  himself  as  Prospero  in 
this  speech,  even  as  his  collected  journalistic  articles  have 
been  sponsored  by  that  same  spirit  of  Shakespeare's  Tem- 
pest. Tlie  title  of  the  famous  address  is  likewise  Shake- 
sperian.  In  the  same  breath  with  which  he  expresses  dis- 
trust of  one  Anglo-Saxon  people  he  extols  the  greatest  genius 
who  has  written  in  their  language!  This  is,  of  course,  in- 
dicative of  many  things, — his  broad  culture,  his  high  ideal- 
ism; but  it  indicates  far  more.     The  race  that  produced  a 


200      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

Shakespeare  has  a  worthy  tradition ;  the  people  out  of  whose 
midst  grew  the  creator  of  Prospero  and  Ariel  to  furnish 
Rodo  with  a  personality  and  a  symbol,  may  look  with  con- 
fidence toward  the  future.  If  these  digressions  serve  to 
suggest  anything,  it  should  be  that  no  nation,  no  people,  has 
a  monopoly  upon  idealism,  the  manifestations  of  which  are 
various  and  the  results  no  less  so. 

We  have  said  that  Ariel  contained  in  germ  the  distin- 
guishing characteristics  of  Rodo's  personality.  What  are 
these?  A  deep  sense  of  life's  uninterrupted  continuity  with 
the  flame  of  its  enthusiasm  and  its  vigor.  It  is  this  sense 
that  lies  at  the  bottom  of  Rodo's  eclecticism  and  enables 
him  to  attempt  a  harmonization  of  Pagan  and  Christian 
virtuesy-'^for  pagans  have  their  virtues  as  Christians  their 
vices.  Out  of  this  sense,  indeed,  may  grow  all  those  other 
qualities  we  discern  in  the  man, — his  fine  tolerance,  his 
aristodemocracy,  his  cosmopolitan  culture,  his  anxiety  to 
effect  a  constant  readjustment  of  the  inner  self  with  the 
outer  world.  Here  there  appear,  too,  the  chief  elements 
of  that  style  which  has  so  enchanted  two  continents, — a  flow- 
ing, glowing  prose  that  verges  upon  the  poetic  without  dis- 
solving into  sentimentality,  illumined  by  similes  and  meta- 
phors organically  related  to  the  text.  What  a  beautiful, 
placid  close  is  that  of  Ariel  in  which  the  master,  taking 
leave  of  his  audience,  hears  the  youngest  of  his  disciples 
exclaim,  as  he  points  to  the  stirrings  of  the  human  multi- 
tude and  then  to  the  radiant  beauty  of  the  night: 

"While  the  crowd  passes,  I  observe  that,  although  it 
does  not  gaze  at  the  sky,  the  sky  gazes  down  upon  it.  And 
into  its  obscure,  indiff"erent  bulk,  like  the  furrows  of  the 


JOSE  ENRIQUE  RODO  201 

land,  something  falls  from  high.  The  vihration  of  the 
stars  seems  like  llie  movement  of  a  sower's  hands." 

Sueh  a  sower,  in  Ariel  and  in  his  other  lahors,  Kodo 
sought  to  he.  Is  it  a  deeper  trust  of  the  human  flock  and 
its  instinctive  impulse  to  justice  and  truth,  that  makes  me 
see  in  Rodo's  manner,  if  not  in  some  of  his  actual  admoni- 
tions, a  residue  of  that  aristocratic  blood  which  he  inher- 
ited from  his  pure  Spanish  ancestry?  Is  there  not  a  world 
of  truth  in  the  perspicacious  statement  of  the  discerning 
poet-critic.  Max  Henriquez  Urena,  that  "if  in  America 
tlie  ignorant  mass  needs  instruction,  the  directing  class 
needs  ideals"?  ^  And  although  by  America  the  author 
meant  only  Spanish  America,  I  for  one  am  willing  to  add 
'the  northern  continent  and  make  the  statement  unanimous. 

There  is  more  in  Ariel:  that  consciousness  of  Spanish 
America's  vast  potentialities  which  informed  everything 
that  sprang  from  Rodo's  pen.  For  Rodo,  remember,  was  a 
partisan  of  die  Magna  Patria,  the  continental  dream  of 
Bolivar.  That  vision  inspired  some  of  his  noblest  pages, 
even  as  it  led  him  to  interpret  its  spiritual  parent.  It  is 
tliat  spirit,  too,  which  must  have  been  present  when  he  said 
that  Dario  was  not  the  poet  of  America.  One  of  the  very 
last  things,  indeed,  that  Rodo  wrote,  in  the  city  of  Rome, 
was  an  article  entitled  The  Spiritual  Union  of  America,  in 
which  he  called  for  the  formation  of  the  Hispano-American 
spirit,  to  sow  in  Uie  consciousness  of  the  peoples  that  idea 
of  "our  America  as  a  common  force,  as  an  indivisible 
power,  as  a  sole  fatherland  (patria  linica).  The  entire 
future  lies  virtually  in  that  work." 

"  Rodu  y  Ruben  Dario.     Page  43. 


202      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

We  have  already  noted  the  literary  aspect  of  this  Amer- 
icanism. Let  us  for  the  present  see  how  its  broader  impli- 
cations shine  out  of  a  series  of  notable  essays  in  which 
Rodo,  interpreting  the  great  spirits  of  Spanish  America  that 
appealed  to  him,  interpreted  himself  as  well, — his  opinions 
upon  tolerance,  democracy,  liberty  and  justice. 

Pick  up  the  essay  on  Montalvo  or  Bolivar  and  you  real- 
ize almost  at  once  that  you  have  made  a  literary  discovery. 
This  writer,  you  tell  yourself,  has  well  merited  compari- 
son with  Emerson,  Macaulay  or  Carlyle.  In  his  essay  upon 
the  beloved  Liberator,  as  in  that  upon  the  great  Ecua- 
dorian, there  glows  Rodo's  own  ardent  belief  in  the  destinies 
of  a  Spanish  America  joined  by  the  bonds  of  an  enlightened 
solidarity.  In  revealing  the  nobility  of  Bolivar  he  re- 
veals his  own  as  a  firm  priest  of  the  higher  democracy  in 
which  (as  he  explicitly  states  in  Ariel),  the  people  will  rise 
above  the  mere  fascination  of  their  own  numbers. 

Professor  J.  D.  M.  Ford  of  Harvard  University,  whose 
influence  has  been  as  potent  as  it  has  been  silent  and  un- 
ostentatious in  cultivating  the  study  of  Spanish  and  Spanish- 
American  letters  in  this  country,  has,  in  his  Main  Cur- 
rents of  Spanish  Literature, '  registered  an  interesting  con- 
trast between  the  literary  fates  of  Bolivar  and  Washington. 
"Fate  has  shown  herself  far  more  kind  to  Bolivar  than  to 
Washington,"  he  writes,  .  .  .  "for  she  raised  up  for  the 
southern  military  genius  a  poet  worthy  to  chronicle  the  suc- 
cess of  his  arms,  while  Washington,  though  first  in  the 
hearts  of  his  countrymen,  has  yet  to  be  commemorated  in 
song,  in  a  manner  befitting  his  proportions."  Rodo's  essay 
upon  Bolivar,  whom  many  believe  greater  than  Washing- 

7  New  York,  1919.    Page  256. 


JOSE  ENRIQUE  RODO  203 

ton,  and  who  was  certainly  more  versatile,  is  one  of  Fate's 
kindnesses  to  tlie  great  Spanish  Aineriean.  It  reveals  hitji 
as  "great  in  thonght,  great  in  aetion,  great  in  glory,  great 
in  misfortune,  .  .  .  great  because  he  endures,  in  abandon- 
ment and  in  death,  the  tragic  expiation  of  greatness.  There 
ar(>  many  human  lives  that  are  characterized  by  a  more  per- 
Itct  harmony,  a  purer  moral  or  a^stlielic  order;  few  offer 
-o  constant  a  character  of  greatness  or  power;  few  sub- 
jcet  die  sympathies  of  the  heroic  imagination  to  so  dom- 
inating a  rule."  Is  not  that  a  superbly,  yet  simply,  or- 
chestrated introduction  to  a  study  that  amplifies  upon  the 
opening  theme  with  illuminating  virtuosity  of  thought  and 
language?  ''The  tragic  expiation  of  greatness."  Is  not 
lliat  a  memorable  phrase,  and  does  it  not  sum  up  the  iso- 
lation of  superiority?  For  Bolivar's  life,  multiple  as  it 
was,  reveals  at  the  close  the  tragedy  of  greatness  and  the 
irony  of  it.  To  the  great  Liberator,  indeed,  might  have 
been  inscribed  the  haunting  lines  that  Dario  wrote  to  an- 
other Liberator  who  built  better  than  he  knew: 

Cristoforo  Colombo,  pobre  Almirante, 
ruega  a  Dios  por  el  mundo  que  descubriste! 

"When  ten  centuries  have  passed,"  concludes  this  re- 
markable essay,  "when  the  patina  of  a  legendary  antiquity 
extends  from  the  Anahuac  to  the  Plata,  tliere  where  today 
Nature  glows  or  civilization  sinks  its  roots;  when  one  hun- 
dred human  generations  will  have  mingled,  in  the  mass  of 
earth  the  dust  of  their  bones  with  the  dust  of  the  forests 
that  will  have  been  a  thousand  times  bereft  of  their  leaves, 
and  of  the  cities  Uiat  will  have  been  twenty  times  recon- 
structed, and  cause  to  reverberate  in  the  memory  of  men 


204      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

'vvho  would  frighten  us  with  their  strangeness  if  we  could 
imagine  what  they  will  look  like,  myriads  of  glorious  names 
in  virtue  of  deeds  and  victories  of  which  we  can  form  no 
conception;  even  then,  if  the  collective  sentiment  of  a  free 
and  united  America  has  not  lost  its  essential  power,  these 
men  .  .  .  will  behold  that  in  the  extension  of  their  rec- 
ords of  glory  there  is  none  greater  than  Bolivar." 

No  less  sympathetic  and  laudatory  is  the  essay  on  Mon- 
talvo,  in  whom  Rodo  sees  the  representative  writer  of  his 
continent,  a  combination  of  Sarmiento's  inspiration  and 
Bello's  art.  With  a  skill  all  the  more  surprising  because 
he  had  never  visited  the  scene,  Rodo  reconstructs  the  com- 
plete environment  into  which  the  author  of  the  Siete  Tra- 
tados  was  bom  and  reveals  himself  eminently  fair  to  his- 
torical characters  embodying  principles  repugnant  to  him. 
Garcia  Moreno  is  thus  not  merely  a  tyrant  to  be  declaimed 
against,  but  a  religious  fanatic  in  whom  obsession  is  to 
blame  for  his  tyranny,  rather  than  any  innate  perversity 
or  distortion  of  human  attributes.  And  when,  in  the  midst 
of  a  most  perspicacious  criticism  of  Montalvo's  literary  pro- 
ductions we  come  upon  the  following  paragraph,  we  are 
quite  ready  to  transcribe  Rodo's  estimate  of  Montalvo  and 
use  it  as  our  own  of  Rodo: 

"Another  essential  feature  of  his  literature,  because  it 
was  also  one  of  his  person  and  his  life,  is  the  tone  of  no- 
bility and  superiority.  This  perennial  agitator  against 
false  and  petty  authorities,  had  a  deep  feeling  for  tlie 
great  and  the  true.  He  was  liberal  in  the  noble  sense  of 
the  word;  demagogue  or  plebeian,  never.  In  quality  of 
ideas,  as  in  temper  of  spirit,  as  in  taste  of  style,  a  caballero 
from  head  to  foot.     He  loved  liberty  with  the  love  of  a 


JOSE!  ENRIQUE  RODO  205 

111  art  that  turned  to  justice  and  of  intelligence  subjected  to 
jnKr;  never  with  tlie  livid,  loathsome  passion  of  him  who 
all  Hers  hunger  for  that  which  nature  or  fortune  conceded  to 
others." 

And  in  one  of  the  finest  passages  in  all  of  Rodo's  works, 
which  illustrates  his  gift  for  j)rodueing  comparisons  doubly 
beautiful  for  their  intrinsic  linguistic  skill  and  their  apt- 
ness of  thought,  the  great  Uruguayan  suggests  that  it  was 
the  sight  of  Cotopaxi  that  first  induced  in  Montalvo  his 
love  of  ortler  and  beauty. 

The  essay  on  Ruben  Dario  is  no  less  revelatory  of 
Rodo's  remarkable  gift  of  reaching  the  heart  of  his  subject 
and  casting  upon  it,  from  every  angle,  the  light  of  a  deep 
learning  and  a  sympathy  no  less  deep.  Be  not  led  astray 
by  the  paragraph  I  have  quoted  from  the  essay  on  Bolivar. 
Rodo  is  not  given  to  superlatives.  If  anything,  there  is 
most  of  the  time  about  his  work  a  certain  classic  repose, 
an  unmffled  equanimity,  that  makes  one  long  for  an  occa- 
sional outburst  of  passion. 

It  was  Rodo,  as  we  have  seen,  that  once  and  for  all  ' 
stamped  the  attribute  of  grace  upon  Dario's  poetry.  His 
analysis,  limited  to  the  Prosas  Profanas,  does  not  reveal 
the  whole  poet  (nor,  to  my  own  way  of  thinking,  the  essen- 
tial poet),  but  within  the  limits  of  the  single  collection 
which  it  treats  it  has  already  become  a  classic  and  has,  as 
we  have  remarked,  literally  rendered  further  analysis  of 
Prosas  Profanas  superfluous. 

It  is  in  Liberalismo  y  Jacobinismo  that  Rodo's  fine  tol- 
erance displays  itself  most  fully.  An  order  from  the 
pjmision  de  Caridad  y  Beneficencia  Publica  of  Montevideo 
had  decreed  that  all  the  crucifixes  of  the  city  hospital  he 


206      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

cast  out.  Whereupon  a  controversy  ensued  in  which  our 
author  took  up  the  cudgels  for  the  crucifix  against  one 
Emilio  Bossi.  It  is  by  no  means  impossible  (adopting  a 
mite  of  Rodo's  own  syncretism),  to  assent  to  the  general 
theses  of  both  men.  A  liberation  from  the  dogmas  of  all 
religions  is  by  no  means  incompatible  with  a  recognition 
of  the  need  felt  by  many  for  religion's  healing  and  soothing 
power.  There  is  a  fanaticism  of  atheism  as  well  as  of  re- 
ligion, and  fanaticism,  wherever  encountered,  is  to  be  de- 
plored. In  arguing  for  the  retention  of  the  crucifixes  Rodo 
revealed  his  deeply  human  understanding  and  his  over- 
flowing sympathy.  For  all  his  equanimity  he  was  a  man 
of  feeling,  who  realized  that  none  has  a  monopoly  of  truth; 
he  had  no  use  for  a  liberalism  that  could  itself  become 
sectarian  and  intolerant.  What  is  gained  by  a  swapping 
of  one  intolerance  for  another?  And  what  is  gained  by  the 
imposition  of  an  idea? 

The  Rodo  of  Ariel  and  of  the  essays  is  a  perspicacious, 
patient  thinker,  moderate  in  judgment,  moderate  in  coun- 
sel, tolerant  in  attitude,  glowing  with  a  constant,  rather 
than  a  volcanic,  passion  for  justice  and  freedom.  His  style 
is  eminently  matched  to  his  subject,  Nowhere  better  than 
in  such  contrary  temperaments  as  Rodo  and  Blanco-Fom- 
bona,  united  only  by  the  same  aspiration  for  a  glorious 
continental  future,  is  illustrated  the  oft-repeated  yet  little 
understood  dictum  that  the  style  is  the  man.  Rodo's  rare 
laughter  might  have  been  discerned  from  his  prose,  in  which 
that  element  of  humor  which  so  brightens  the  pages  of 
Gutierrez  Najera  is  absent.  His  deeply  meditative  nature 
blossoms  in  a  thousand  metaphors  that  illumine  his  mean-^ 
ing  and  not,  as  in  so  much  fine  writing,  befog  it.     He  is 


JOSL  ENRIQUE  RODO  207 

not,  like  Blanco-Fombona,  a  volcano;  not,  like  Dario,  a 
flame;  not,  like  Cliocano,  a  trinnpcl;  he  is  a  glow, — an  in- 
tense, radiant,  niaiiy-coloicd  glow  in  the  heart  of  things. 
He  is  no  more  of  the  crowd  than  Dario,  yet  he  loves  it  more 
despite  his  stem  interpretation  of  democracy;  he  is  a  dis- 
ciple, let  us  say,  of  nature's  nobility,  a  leader  of  leaders. 
His  influence  will  })erhaps  penetrate  not  directly,  but 
through  its  effect  upon  Hispano-American  thinkers  who  will 
in  tuni  coinniunicate  that  influence,  slowly  but  surely,  to 
tlie  thinkins:  crowd. 


'o 


2.  Motivos  de  Proteo 

It  is  in  the  Motivos  de  Proteo  that  Rodo's  philosophy  is 
developed  to  the  point  of  a  dynamic  system.     I  do  not  know 
how  deeply    Rodo   was   acquainted   with   the   methods   of 
psycho-analysis,  but  his  plumbing  of  our  undreamed-of  po- 
tentialities is  not  a  little  related,  in  both  premises  and  con- 
clusions, to  the  methods,  if  not  the  aims,  of  Freudian  psy- 
chologists.    He  deals,  of  course,  with  the  normal  mind 
'  (which,  like  the  normal  eyesight  of  which  Bernard  Shaw 
speaks  in  one  of  his  logorrheie  prefaces,  is  so  rare),  but 
his  realization  of  the  possibilities  of  the  average  man  and 
of  tlic  paramount  importance  of  the  unconscious  in  every- 
day life  ranges  him  with  the  foremost  contemporary  psy- 
chologists.    He  gives  us  a  new  realization  of  self;  he  dis- 
j  covers,  even  to  the  most  introspective  natures  among  us,  a 
[  veritable  universe  of  new  worlds  within.     He  exhibits  us 
1  to  ourselves  not  as  a  single  being,  but  as  the  sum  total  of 
'  our  entire  past,  worked  upon  by  influences  we  know  not  of, 
»  yet  in  a  measure  able  to  direct  those  forces.     Self-knowl- 


208       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

edge,  self-adaptation  in  the  light  of  that  knowledge,  con- 
tinuous re-adjustment  in  the  light  of  newer  knowledge, — 
self-renewal  is  Life. 

And  why  Proteus  as  the  symbolic  speaker?  Here  again, 
as  in  Ariel,  in  a  single  symbol  the  author  concentrates  his 
entire  philosophy.  Ariel  is  eternal  youth;  Proteus  is  eter- 
nal change  guided  by  the  essential  unity  of  a  dominant 
personality.  For  was  it  not  Proteus  who  could  at  will 
assume  new  forms?  "A  form  of  the  sea,  a  spirit  of  the 
sea,  from  whose  restless  bosom  antiquity  drew  a  fecund 
generation  of  myths,  Proteus  was  he  who  guarded  Posei- 
don's flocks  of  seals.  In  the  Odyssey  and  in  the  Georgics 
is  sung  his  venerable  ancientness,  his  passage  over  the 
waves  in  the  swift  marine  coach.  Like  all  the  divinities  of 
the  waters  he  possessed  the  prophetic  gift  and  complete 
knowledge,  fled  all  consultation,  and  in  order  to  elude  hu- 
man curiosity  resorted  to  his  marvellous  faculty  of  trans- 
forming himself  into  a  thousand  divers  forms.  It  was  this 
faculty  by  which  he  was  characterized  in  mythology,  and 
it  determines  .  .  .  his  ideal  significance. 

"When  the  Homeric  Menelaus  desires  to  learn  through 
him  what  course  his  vessels  shall  follow;  when  the  Aristaeus 
of  Vergil  goes  to  ask  him  the  secret  of  the  evil  which  con- 
sumes his  bees,  Proteus  has  recourse  to  that  mysterious 
virtue  with  which  he  disorientated  those  who  surprised  him. 
Now  he  would  change  into  a  wild  lion,  now  into  a  wriggling, 
scaly  serpent;  now,  converted  into  fire,  he  would  rise  like 
a  tremulous  flame ;  now  he  was  the  tree  that  lifted  its  crest 
to  the  vicinity  of  the  heavens,  now  the  brook  that  rippled 
rapidly  along.  Ever  elusive,  ever  new,  he  ran  through  the 
infinity  of  appearances  without  fixing  his  most  subtle  es- 


JOSE  ENRIQUE  RODO  209 

sencc  in  any  of  them.  .\nd  because  of  this  infinite  plas- 
ticity, being  a  divinity  of  the  sea,  he  personified  one  of  tlic 
aspects  of  llic  sea:  he  was  the  miillifaiioiis  wave,  intract- 
ible,  incapable  of  concretion  or  repose;  the  wave,  which 
now  rebels  and  now  caresses;  which  at  times  lulls  to  rest, 
and  at  others  tluuiders;  which  possesses  all  the  volubilities 
of  impulse,  all  the  nuances  of  color,  all  the  modulations 
of  sound;  wliicli  never  rises  or  falls  in  die  same  way,  and 
which,  taking  from  a:ul  returning  to  the  ocean  the  liquid 
which  it  gathers,  impresses  upon  inert  equality  form,  move- 
ment and  change." 

Such  is  the  invocatory  foreword  to  the  Motivos.  By  a 
masterful  choice  of  a  single  word,  as  it  were,  Rodo  sym- 
bolizes to  us  the  Protean  personality  that  we  conceal  within, 
— that  personality  of  which  most  of  us  learn  to  know  only 
a  single  form,  and  which  is  yet  as  latently  multiform  as  the 
Greek  divinity  of  the  waters  himself. 

Max  Henriquez  Urefia,  in  his  excellent  study  of  the  in- 
spiring Uruguayan,  has  rather  ingeniously  (yet  following 
a  similar  cue  in  such  an  essay  as  Rodo's  ovm  masterly  one 
upon  Montalvo)  suggested  that  it  was  the  ocean  itself  that 
helped  to  originate  Rodo's  philosophy  of  eternal  change. 
For,  ever  before  the  scholar's  sight,  facing  Uie  city  through 
which  the  noted  figure  (tall  and  recalling  to  many  the 
swooping  condor  of  the  Andes)  was  wont  to  stroll,  was  the 
restless,  ever-changing  yet  eternal  ocean. 

"How  often  the  immense  sea  changes  color!"  Rodo  has 
written.  "Who  spoke  of  the  monotony  of  the  sea?  The  firm 
earth  varies  only  in  space;  the  sea  changes  and  transforms 
itself  in  time.  .  .  .  This  immensity  is  a  perpetual  becom- 
ing [Rodo  here  employs  the  French  word  devenir].  .  .  . 


210       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

What  scale  like  the  scale  of  its  sounds?  What  palette  like 
that  which  supplies  its  hues?  What  imagination  richer  in 
forms  than  the  wave,  never  resembling  itself?" 

Once  again  I  may  recall  the  pregnant  saying  of  La  Roche- 
foucauld, which  surely  deserves  to  stand  as  one  of  the 
epigraphs  of  the  Motivos:  "We  differ  mostly  from  our- 
selves." A  most  protean  saying  in  tlie  light  of  Rodo's 
inner  delvings,  and  one  most  rich  in  suggestions  to  the 
man  who  seeks  self-knowledge.  For,  from  the  very  fact 
that  we  are  ourselves,  we  are  all  men.  Must  not  such  a 
notion  have  underlain  Rodo's  exemplary  tolerance? 

To  return  for  a  moment  to  Henriquez  Ureiia's  suggestion. 
"After  knowing  this  page,"  he  writes^  (he  has  just  quoted 
the  passage  from  which  I  translated  the  above  excerpts), 
"would  it  be  rash  to  affirm  that  the  constant  vision  of  the  sea 
served  as  inspiration  and  guide  to  Rodo's  philosophic 
thought,  by  the  sole  process  of  transmuting  the  material  ob- 
servation into  a  spiritual  conception?"  Such  was  Rodo's 
habit,  as  he  himself  has  told  us:  "My  imagination  is  of 
such  cast  that  every  material  appearance  tends  to  translate 
itself  into  an  idea.  Nature  always  speaks  to  me  the  lan- 
guage of  the  spirit."  Surely  enough,  as  we  have  seen,  it 
is  a  divinity  of  the  sea  that  Rodo  invokes  at  the  beginning 
of  his  masterwork.  And  was  not  Ariel  himself  somewhat 
of  a  sea  sprite? 

Let  us  now  follow,  in  outline,  the  rich  content  of  the 
work  in  which  the  Uruguayan  scholar  entraps  the  elusive 
spirit  of  Proteus  and  compels  him  to  yield  a  tithe  of  his 
fascinating  lore. 

The  great  motto,  as  we  have  seen,  is  Reformarse  es  vivir, 

"  Op.  cit.    Page  15. 


JOSE  ENRIQUE  RODO  211 

— Sclf-rcncwal  is  Life.  None  more  than  Rodo  realizes 
tlie  compelling  need  for  continual  change;  none  more  than 
he  feels  that  life  is  not  a  definite,  inalterahle  result,  hut  a 
^becoming.  Is  not  this  the  negation  of  all  that  is  static  and 
reactionary'?  Does  not  this  principle,  so  easy  to  accept  in 
theor)'  and  so  difficult  to  countenance  in  practice,  underly 
all  progress?  To  Rodo,  time  is  tlie  greatest  innovator, 
and  hy  that  same  token  the  ally  of  all  change,  which, 
whether  we  will  or  not,  is  ever  going  on  within  us.  We  may 
not  heed  ourselves,  one  might  phrase  it,  hut  our  selves  heed 
us.  Each  one  of  us  is,  successively,  not  one,  but  many. 
And  these  successive  personalities,  which  emerge  one  from 
the  other,  offer  themselves  the  rarest  and  most  astonishing 
contrasts.  And  witliin  us,  nothing  happens  without  a  re- 
sult; everything  leaves  its  trace.  Our  personalities  are, 
then,  in  this  constant  flux,  a  "death  whose  sum  is  death; 
resurrections  whose  persistency  is  life.  .  .  .  We  are  the 
wake  of  the  vessel  whose  material  entity  does  not  remain 
the  same  for  two  successive  moments,  because  incessantly 
it  dies  and  is  reborn  amid  the  waves;  the  wake,  which  is, 
not  a  persisting  reality,  but  a  progressive  form,  a  succession 
of  rhythmic  impulses  which  act  upon  a  constantly  renewed 
object." 

We  are,  as  it  were,  a  vortex  of  incessant  inner  changes 
in  an  ocean  of  outer  ones.  And  "he  who  lives  rationally  is 
he  who,  aware  of  the  incessant  activity  of  change,  tries  each 
day  to  obtain  a  clear  notion  of  his  internal  state  and  of  the 
transformations  that  have  occurred  in  the  objects  that  sur- 
round him,  and  in  accordance  with  this  knowledge  .  .  . 
directs  his  thoughts  and  his  acts."  And  here,  at  the  very 
outset,  the  author  comes  upon  a  most  important  applica- 


212       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

tion  of  his  fecund  principle  to  modem  education,  pointing 
out  that  one  of  our  worst  errors  is  the  view  that  existence  is 
divided  into  two  consecutive  and  naturally  separated  parts, 
— that  in  which  we  learn  and  that  in  which  we  use  the  results 
of  the  accumulated  knowledge.  If  life  is  a  perpetual  be- 
coming, it  follows  tha-t  knowledge  is  a  constant  acquiring. 
"As  long  as  we  live,  our  personality  is  upon  the  anvil,  .  .  . 
We  must  ivy,  in  the  intellectual  field,  never  to  diminish  or 
lose  completely  our  interest,  the  child's  curiosity, — that 
alertness  of  fresh  ingenuous  attention  and  the  stimulus 
which  is  bom  of  knowing  oneself  ignorant  since  we  are 
always  that.  .  .  ."  That  eternal  youth  which  Rodo 
preached,  and  which  he  so  well  exemplified,  is  attained  by 
the  constant  self-renewal  without  which  life  becomes  worse 
than  vegetative,  sinking  to  the  level  of  the  mineral  kingdom. 
Renovation,  transformation,  reintegration.  "Is  not  this 
all  the  philosophy  of  action  and  life?  Is  this  not  life  it- 
self, if  by  life  we  are  to  understand  in  the  human  sphere 
something  other  than  the  somnambulism  of  the  animal  and 
the  vegetation  of  the  plant?" 
/  Rodo  is  an  optimist,  though  not  of  the  type  represented 
/  by  Dr.  Pangloss  and  his  great-great-grandaughter  Polly- 
anna.  He  sees,  from  the  very  multiplicity  of  our  inner 
selves, ]the  possibility  of  changing  apparent  failure  or  mis- 
fortune into  a  new  orientation  of  our  lives,  the  chance  to 
obtain  good  out  of  evil.  Nor  is  he  content  with  cold  coun- 
sel; patiently  and  with  a  readiness  that  attests  his  vast  read- 
ing and  retentive  memory,  he  adduces  example  after  ex- 
ample to  sustain  .his  point,  not  to  speak  of  secular  parables 
that  have  passed  into  the  anthologies  for  their  illuminative 
beauty.     There  are  so  many  latent  powers  within  us,  there 


JOSE  ENRIQUE  RODO  213 

is  such  a  wealth  of  spiritual  reserves,  that  the  frustration  of 
any  one  power  is  compensated  for  by  the  discovery  of  an- 
other. Men  cheated  of  a  life  of  action  (like  Vauvcnar- 
gues)  turn  to  fruitful  contemplation;  spirits  opposed  in 
their  desire  for  diplomatic  preferment  (like  Ronsard)  de- 
velop poetic  powers;  a  Prescott  forced  by  illness  to  abandon 
the  Forum  becomes  a  glorious  historian.  Our  self  is  an 
inexhaustible  fund  of  potentialities.  "Man  of  little  faith, 
what  do  you  know  of  that  which  dwells  within  you?  .  .  ." 
Herein  lies  the  fascination  of  our  self-discovery, — the  en- 
chantment of  becoming  our  own  Columbus.  "Is  there  any- 
thing tliat  interests  you  more  than  the  discovery  of  what  is 
within  you  and  nowhere  else:  a  land  that  was  created  for 
you  alone;  an  America  whose  only  possible  discoverer  is 
you  yourself,  without  the  need  of  fearing,  in  your  gigantic 
design,  either  rivals  to  dispute  your  glory  or  conquerors  to 
usurp  your  gain?"  By  this,  however,  Rodo  does  not  mean 
sterile,  morbid  introspection,  but  fruitful  contemplation, — 
he  prefers  Marcus  Aurelius  to  Amiel.  Thus  we  are  aided 
to  realize  how  many  of  our  supposed  personal  beliefs  are 
but  the  imposition  of  society;  we  are  to  strive,  however, 
for  the  assertion  of  our  true  selves,  without  forgetting  that 
originality,  so-called,  is  but  a  returning  of  ideas  to  society, 
rather  than  a  gift.  The  point  is  well  worth  dwelling  upon. 
We  call  that  liberty,  that  originality,  genius,  when  it  reaches 
a  certain  degree.  But  how  often  is  "the  contribution  with 
which  individual  thought  seems  to  bring  new  elements  to 
the  common  horde  in  reality  a  restitution  of  ideas  that  have 
been  slowly  and  silently  absorbed!  Even  as  one  would  be 
apt  to  judge,  from  outward  appearances,  that  it  is  the  rivers 
which  supply  the  ocean  with  water,  since  they  pour  into  it. 


214      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

while  it  is  the  sea  whence  comes  the  water  in  which  the 
rivers  rise."  A  beautiful  comparison  and  a  true,  which 
should  make  our  "leaders"  more  humble  and  the  flock  more 
confident. 

In  this  philosophy  of  ego-culture  there  is  little  egotism; 
it  is  self,  not  selfishness,  that  Rodo  is  concerned  with.  The 
realization  of  our  internal  cosmos  confronts  him  at  every 
turn.  "By  a  general  law,  a  human  soul  may  give  of  itself 
more  than  its  consciousness  believes  and  perceives,  and 
much  more  than  its  will  transforms  into  deed."  In  Peer 
Gynt  the  philosopher  beholds  the  highest  expression  of  the 
remorse  that  overtakes  the  spendthrift  of  personality. 
"Peer  Gynt!     Peer  Gynt!     You  are  a  legion  of  legions!" 

The  fluidity  of  self  must  form  the  basic  principle  of  edu- 
cation, declares  Rodo.  "Any  philosophy  of  the  human 
spirit;  any  investigation  into  the  history  of  man  and  peo- 
ples, any  judgment  upon  a  character,  an  attitude  or  a  moral- 
ity; any  proposal  for  education  or  reform,  which  does  not 
take  into  account  .  .  .  this  complexity  of  the  moral  per- 
son, may  not  flatter  itself  with  the  hope  of  truth  or  cer- 
tainty." Hence  our  contradictory  natures  (so  well  de- 
picted, says  Rodo,  in  Shakespeare's  characters) ;  hence 
Rodo's  own  splendid  tolerance  in  the  vast,  human  sense  of 
the  word. 

Rodo  realizes  deeply  that  the  soul  of  each  of  us  is  the 
sum  of  the  souls  of  all  our  predecessors,  back  to  countless 
generations.  "All  those  who  have  passed  from  the  reality 
of  the  world  persist  in  you.  .  .  .  What  is  the  mysterious 
mandate  of  the  instinct  that  works  in  you  without  the  inter- 
vention of  your  will  and  your  consciousness,  but  a  voice'] 
which  .  .  .  rises  from  the  depths  of  an  immemorial  past 


JOSE  ENRIQUE  RODO  215 

and  compels  you  to  perform  an  act  preordained  by  the  cus- 
toms of  your  ancestors?"  It  is  out  of  these  elements  that 
wt*  construct  our  pcrsotiality :  the  changes  are  often  fore- 
casted by  signs  that  we  little  heed  or  recognize  at  the  time 
they  first  occur.  No  psychiatrist  was  ever  more  aware  of 
the  importance  of  the  apparently  least  significant  mental 
phenomena;  our  impulsiveness  (so-called)  possesses  deep 
roots.  No  real  understanding  of  our  conscious  selves  is 
thus  possible  without  some  acquaintance  with  the  sub- 
merged element.  To  Rodo  there  is  no  such  thing  as  events 
great  and  small;  all  are  potentially  great.  Did  not  the 
(light  of  birds  (and  what  more  poetically  innocent  than 
this?)  determine  the  discovery  of  the  North  American  con- 
tinent? And  every  act  of  ours,  every  thought,  may  be 
just  such  a  flight.   .   .   . 

A  considerable  part  of  the  first  half  is  devoted  to  the 
absorbing  subject  of  human  vocation,  which  the  Uruguayan 
philosopher  tenns  "the  consciousness  of  a  determined  apti- 
tude." Human  aptitude  is  indeed  an  unfathomable  well, 
as  is  shown  by  the  Titans  of  the  Renaissance.  Yet  if  we 
may  not  all  be  Leonardos,  how  little  of  our  garden  do  we 
cultivate!  And  in  the  matter  of  human  potentialities  Rodo 
is  glowingly  optimistic;  we  are  all,  so  to  speak,  latent  super- 
men,— not  quite  in  the  sense  commonly  attributed  to 
Nietzsche's  blond  beast,  but  in  the  significance  of  a  broadly 
developed,  many-faceted  personality. 

Rodo's  lengthy  argument  on  vocation  should  be  studied 
not  only  by  our  so-styled  vocational  trainers  (who,  too  often 
in  practice,  serve  to  stifle  non-utilitarian  gifts  in  favor  of 
materialistic  development)  but  by  all  teachers  and  parents. 
What  a  mine  of  suggestion  there  is  in  his  anecdote  about 


216       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

Pestalozzi,  whose  instructor  could  make  no  progress  with 
him,  "not  suspecting  surely  that  the  bad  pupil  was  destined 
to  invent  new  and  better"  methods.  Hence  the  need  for 
fostering  natural  inclinations. 

It  is  difficult  to  believe  the  assertion  of  his  friends  that 
Rodo  never  loved ;  for  section  LIV  of  the  Motivos  is  devoted 
to  an  admirable  exposition  of  Love  as  the  motive  power  of 
art.  "Love  is  the  pole  and  the  quintessence  of  sensibility, 
and  the  artist  is  sensibility  incarnate."  And  further  on: 
"He  who  loves  is,  in  the  intimate  recesses  of  his  imagina- 
tion, a  poet  and  artist,  althoufrh  he  may  lack  the  gift  of 
forming  into  a  real  and  palpable  work  the  divine  spirit  that 
possesses  him." 

We  have  seen  that  Rodo  has  an  intense  and  abiding  faith 
in  human  capabilities, — that  he  does  not  tire  of  studying  the 
methods  of  their  cultivation  and  the  reasons  for  their  aber- 
ration; he  has,  too,  a  deep  realization  of  how  much  talent, 
and  even  genius,  is  stifled  by  the  harsh  conditions  of  mod- 
em life.  "How  many  forces  capable  of  a  lofty  dynamism 
remain  unknown,  and  are  lost  forever  in  the  obscure  depths 
of  human  society!"  he  exclaims,  in  lines  that  recall,  at 
once,  the  imperishable  beauty  in  which  our  own  Gray  has 
framed  the  same  idea.  "Is  there  a  tliought  more  wortliy 
than  this  of  deep,  serious  attention?  .  .  ."  And  in  the 
chaotic,  opaque  mass  of  tlie  common  people's  spirit  he 
thus  sees,  potentially,  an  excellent  literature  and  a  high  art, 
a  science  impregnated  with  clarity,  and  tliousands  of  heroic 
battles,  in  such  a  manner  that,  according  to  the  superb 
image  of  Tyndall,  even  the  dramas  of  Shakespeare  existed, 
like  all  things  else,  potentially  in  the  nebulous  haze  of  the 
world's  beginnings.     Is  it  not  significant  tliat  every  age 


JOSE  ENRIQUE  KODO  217 

summons  forth  tlie  heroes  that  it  needs?     Not  that  they 

arrivo  in  slcailv  nnmbtM's,  for  "many  more  arc  the  seeds 
that  the  earth  allows  to  go  to  waste  than  those  it  reeeives." 
\iul  then  this  notable  excerpt  in  whith  the  philosopher  is 
a[  once  humanist,  scientist,  conmioner  and  inspirer:  "In 
tilt'  eternal  conflict  which  dt^tcrmines  which  shall  be  the 
chosen  from  the  number  that  are  called,  since  there  is  not 
ro.im  lor  all,  the  greater  fitness  or  power  prevails;  superior- 
it\  triumphs  and  imposes  its  will;  but  this  alone  does  not 
Svitisfy  justice,  for  we  still  have  to  reckon  with  those  who 
Avr  among  neither  the  chosen  nor  the  called;  those  who 
may  not  even  arrive  at  the  arena  of  the  contest,  since  they 
live  in  such  conditions  that  tliey  are  unaware  of  their  own 
selves  or  it  is  lorbidden  them  to  bring  forth  the  gold  from 
tlitir  own  mine.  And  among  these,  ah!  who  knows  whether 
there  are  not  the  first  and  the  best?"  .  .  . 

Consider  the  deep  human  sympathy  this  memorable  pas- 
ture connotes.      See  how  Rodo  applies  his  philosophy  of 

1  -culture  not  alone  to  individuals  but  to  society.  Just  as 
human  personality  is  vibrant  with  countless  potentialities, 
so  is  the  social  personality  aquiver  with  innumerable  latent 
gifts  that  never  come  to  light.  Much  of  this  loss  is  inevit- 
able; much,  however,  is  a  direct  effect  of  social  and  eco- 
nomic maladjustment. 

The  cogent  thinker  carries  his  ideas  into  the  realm  of 
letters,  witli  the  result  that  he  perceives  the  folly  of  writers 
and  personalities  grouping  themselves  solely  by  "schools'* 
and  thus  achieving  a  false  uniformity.  Not  for  him  the 
preceptive  attitude  of  the  taskmaster  critic  who  seeks  to 
teach  the  creative  artist  what  to  think  and  how  to  express  it; 
he  recognizes  most  explicitly  the  psychological  root  of  such 


218       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

"isms"  as  bristle  in  our  forest  of  classification  so  densely 
that  we  cannot  see  the  authors  for  the  terminology.  Pro- 
vided that  the  realism  or  the  idealism,  the  subjectivity  or 
impersonality  of  the  author  is  a  sincere,  unforced,  spontane- 
ous product,  he  would  foster  it  most  sympathetically.  The 
mere  imitator  he  with  justice  deplores,  for  such  imitation 
is  the  very  negation  of  personality.  Such  imitation  should 
not  be  confused,  however,  with  the  natural  attraction  of 
kindred  spirits  to  one  another. 

It  is  surprising  how,  as  Rodo  develops  his  great  theme, 
he  manages  to  extract  new  meanings,  new  aspects,  new  ori- 
entations, from  a  simple  statement  that,  when  uttered,  seems 
to  demand  little  further  elucidation.  The  fecundity  of  his 
central  thought  that  self-reformation  is  life,  thus  mirrors 
the  very  fecundity  of  that  self  whose  cultivation  he 
preaches, — not  the  superficial  self-culture  of  rapid  cor- 
respondence courses,  but  a  daily  discovery  of  a  new  world 
within  us.  In  the  beauty  of  his  diction  and  thought  is  a 
reflection  of  the  author's  own  beauty;  his  was  a  life  that 
discovered  riches  where  others  had  seen  only  monotony. 
He  was  himself  the  best  example  of  that  "perfect  and  typ- 
ical exemplar  of  progressive  life"  which  he  mentions  in 
section  LXXXII,  for  "his  philosophy  is  like  the  light  of  each 
dawn,  a  new  thing,  because  it  is  born,  not  of  a  logical 
formalism,  but  from  the  living,  seething  bosom  of  a  soul." 
Rodo  was  rightly  the  enemy  of  "schools"  and  "systems"; 
his  dynamic  philosophy  is  inconsistent  with  anything  that 
attempts  to  place  a  seal  upon  human  knowledge  and  activity, 
saying  "Thus  only  is  it,  and  this  is  all  of  truth";  he  was 
that  protean  mentality  of  which  he  became  the  great  expo-i 


JOSE  ENRIQUE  RODO  219 

iicnt.  Nor  is  liis  niolhod  an  abstract  one,  dealmg  in  a  pri- 
ori. The  Motiios  arc  in  a  very  vital  sense  a  history  of 
liiinian  personality, — of  the  world's  representative  men.  It 
is  from  the  knowledge  (and  an  intimate  knowledge)  of 
many  lives  in  all  ages  that  he  evolved  these  notable  thoughts. 
His  Protcism,  as  tlie  expression  of  man's  unboundedly 
wealthy  inner  life,  is  nothing  new;  indeed,  I  am  not  certain 
that  it  is  possible  to  place  a  finger  on  any  specific  passage 
in  the  Motiros  and  say  "This  is  new."  Is  it  even  desirable? 
\\  hat  is  fresh,  however,  in  Rodo,  is  the  constant,  patient 
delving  into  the  personality,  his  examination  of  it  from  a 
liundred  different  angles,  his  renovation  of  ancient  example, 
his  transformation  of  the  material  into  a  self-revelation. 

His  anxiety  for  self-renewal  led  him  to  consider  the 
importance  of  travel.  If  self-reformation  is  life,  travel  is 
self-reformation.  It  serves  to  break  us  away  from  the  roots 
that  we  naturally  sink  into  our  environment  (and  how  the 
[)rotean  master  fears  the  immobility  connoted  in  roots!) 
and  to  enrich  our  views.  "The  expatriation  of  voy- 
ages is  therefore  the  supreme  antidote  for  routine  thought, 
for  fanatic  passion,  for  all  manner  of  rigidity  and  blind- 
ness." Travelling,  like  solitude,  is  a  method  of  with- 
drawal, which  is  so  necessary  for  a  summary  of  our  inner 
state.  Travel,  too,  (and  this  I  consider  a  most  important 
element  in  the  protean  philosophy  of  Rodo)  leads  to  intel- 
lectual internationalism.  Nations,  like  individuals,  must 
know  themselves  to  know  each  other;  man  is,  at  bottom,  as 
Rodo  asserts,  "a  citizen  of  the  world."  Is  not  the  study 
of  foreign  literatures,  too,  a  sort  of  mental  travelling?  The 
author  is  rich  in  examples  of  men   whose  travels  have 


220       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

wrought  profound  influence  not  only  upon  themselves  but 
upon  their  generation, — Goethe,  Gautier,  Cervantes,  Gib- 
bon, Irving.  .  .  . 

Is  it  surprising,  then,  that  Rodo  should  possess  a  protean 
conception  of  Truth?  For  truth  itself,  like  life,  is  not  a 
concrete  entity,  but  a  becoming;  not  a  static  measure  but  a 
dynamic  force.  Significantly  enough,  it  was  not  truth,  but 
love  of  truth,  that  Rodo  sought  to  bring  to  his  fellow  man. 
In  asserting  the  utility  of  a  conviction  or  a  belief  as  the 
guide  of  our  will  and  our  thought,  he  is  characteristically 
careful  to  recall  that  such  convictions  or  beliefs  are  not 
always  present  in  some  personalities,  whereupon  he  adds, 
in  italics,  or  a  diligent  and  disinterested  desire  for  truth 
that  may  guide  our  mind  upon  the  road  to  acquiring  them 
(i.  e.,  conviction  or  belief.)  There  have  been  creative  art- 
ists who  have  asserted  that  their  very  aimlessness  is  their 
goal;  I  am  not  sure  that  the  paradox  is  an  altogether  futile 
one,  but  in  all  probability  the  Uruguayan  would  call  such 
an  "aim"  the  "sterile  fatigue  of  a  purposeless  motion." 

Just  as  our  ideas  and  acquisitions  tend  to  crystallize 
about  a  certain  conviction  or  belief  (which  should  be  the 
resultant  and  not  the  dictator  of  those  ideas),  so  human 
aptitudes,  though  multiform  within  the  same  personality, 
are  usually  subordinated  to  a  dominant  gift.  Alfonse  the 
Learned,  Dante,  Raymond  Lully  and  Leonardo  da  Vinci 
were  all  very  versatile  men,  but  it  was  the  legislator  who 
predominated  in  the  first,  the  poet  in  the  second,  the  philoso- 
pher in  the  third,  and  the  painter  in  the  last.  Often  one 
vocation  suggests  another;  even  hostile  personal  forces  may 
be  harmonized  within  the  same  individual  or  race;  Rodo 
points  out  that  primitive  Christianity  was  thus  born  of  a 


JOSE  ENRIQUE  RODO  221 

ace  in  which  the  most  fervent  religious  spirit  was  united 
>  the  finest  economic  lad.  As  usual,  Rodo,  whose  interest 
J  centered  with  untiring  steadiness  upon  human  beings 
nd  not  upon  abstract  principles,  is  plentiful  in  examples. 
Tiere  is  Wagner,  in  whom  the  literary  faculty  aided  the 
lusical;  there  is  Boito,  poet  and  musician  in  one;  there  are 
^eetiioven  and  Mozart,  skilled  alike  as  creators  and  inter- 
•reters;  Plaulus,  Shakespeare,  Moliere,  who  could  act  as 
/ell  as  create.  And  Rodo  is  quite  right  when  he  flies  in  the 
ace  of  not  only  popular,  but  "intellectual"  opinion,  with 
ae  assertion  that  ''it  is  a  common  error  to  imagine  that  the 
ift  and  energy  of  practice  .  .  .  inhibit  or  take  away 
lower  from  the  aptitude  for  theory."  Here  again  he  is 
ich  in  personal  example  of  men  gifted  with  both  the  cre- 
.tive  and  the  critical  powers. 

Does  not  all  creation  imply  a  form  of  criticism, — if  not 
nconscious  self-criticism?  And  is  not  criticism  a  form  of 
reation?  Indeed,  do  not  many  of  our  unsuspected  powers 
;o  to  waste,  or  rather,  never  rise  to  consciousness  because 
ircumstances  have  never  summoned  them?  I  believe  the 
Spanish  people  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic  furnish  a 
triking  proof  of  versatility  called  into  being  by  necessity, 
low  relatively  often  do  we  encounter,  in  one  man,  the  poet, 
he  statesman,  tlie  playwright,  the  journalist!  May  not 
his  be  due,  in  part,  to  the  great  percentage  of  illiteracv, 
md  to  the  resulting  fact  that  the  various  functions  of  the 
ntellectual  life  must  be  performed  by  the  same  few  who 
lave  received  the  advantages  of  an  education?  There  are 
uch  things  as  special  gifts,  of  course;  but  there  are  in- 
^nitely  more  gifts,  special  and  general,  that  are  submerged 
)eneath  the  waters  of  social  and  economic  maladjustment. 


222       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

Rodo  insists  upon  the  potent  influence  of  the  unconscious, 
even  when  it  never  rises  to  the  surface  of  the  individual's 
consciousness.  And  returning  to  his  theme  of  the  direct- 
ing idea, — even,  indeed,  when  that  direction  is  vague, — 
he  asks,  in  almost  Tennysonian  phraseology,  whether,  as  a 
directive  power  in  life,  the  absence  of  love  is  of  more  value 
than  love  devoted  to  one  who  is  unworthy  of  inspiring  it.^ 
"Let  me  gaze  into  the  depths  of  your  soul  and  see  in  what 
direction  your  love  points,  and  I  will  tell  you  .  .  .  whither 
you  are  going  over  life's  paths,  and  what  is  to  be  expected 
of  you  in  your  thoughts  and  your  works."  He  recognizes, 
too,  the  great  releasing  power  of  love  as  a  liberator  of 
ideas  and  acts,  and  that  frequently  it  "triumphs  over  the 
inferiority  of  the  object."  Such  a  lover,  then,  is  really  in 
love  with  an  ideal  rather  than  with  the  real  object,  and  it  is 
the  ideal  tliat  is  his  compass. 

The  philosopher  insists,  then,  upon  the  crystallization  of 
thoughts  around  a  central  idea,  whether  that  be  love,  a  con- 
viction, or  a  belief.  "How  many  a  fecund  thought,  how 
many  a  happy  invention,  how  many  a  new  truth  or  new 
beauty,  a  victory  for  good,  an  amelioration  in  the  condition 
of  man  has  not  Humanity  lost  in  this  manner!"  (i.  e. 
through  lack  of  adhesion  to  a  central  thought-power). 
Even  bootless  search  may  prove  fruitful  in  by-products,  so 
to  speak,  so  long  as  the  guiding  impulse  is  tliere. 

We  must  subject  our  ideas  to  a  continual  test  in  the  light  )|f 
of  our  new  knowledge ;  if  they  do  not  survive  that  test  they 

*  Far  be  it  from  me  to  intrude  psycho-analysis  into  these  studies.     But, 
since  Rodo's  friends  have  noted  that  he  never  had  a  love  affair,  may  not 
some  of  his  lines,  as  here  summarized,  indicate  that  he  had  suffered  a  dis- 
appointment, whence   he  had   sought  to   draw   consolation?     For  one   who  *  f3 
has  never  loved,  Rodo  ascribes  far  too  much  potency  to  the  passion. 


JOSE  ENRIQUE  RODO  223 

nust  disappear.  Unwillingness  to  change  is,  in  reality, 
|ilienation  of  personality.  Nor  does  Rodo  fear  the  cry  of 
'Apostate!  Traitor!"  For  well  he  knows  that  "there  is 
lo  human  creed  that  has  not  originated  in  an  inconsistency, 
in  infidelity.  The  dogma  that  is  today  a  sacred  tradition 
,^as  at  its  birth  a  heretic  piece  of  daring.  In  abandoning 
t  to  attain  to  your  truth,  you  do  but  follow  the  example  of 
he  master  who,  in  order  to  founil  it,  broke  the  authority  of 
he  idea  which  in  his  day  was  dogma.  .  .  ."  Here  we 
lave  not  only  one  of  the  noblest  passages  from  a  writer 
rich  in  such  nobility,  but  one  of  the  pivotal  principles  of 
lis  entire  philosophy.  Is  not  this  eternal  heterodoxy 
which,  none  the  less,  may  not  be  termed  extremism  because 
jf  its  deep  sense  of  evolution)  the  fruit  of  Rodo's  intense 
relief  in  the  necessity  of  self -renewal?  Is  it  not  a  natural 
jorollary  of  his  conception  of  trutli,  no  less  than  life,  as  a 
becoming?  From  his  beautiful  parable  of  La  Despedida 
le  Gorgas  (Gorgas's  Farewell;  section  CXXVII  of  the  Mo- 
ivos  de  Proteo)  we  may  transcribe  that  master's  words  and 
nake  them  Rodo's  own:  "I  was  to  you  a  master  of  love;  I 
lave  tried  to  impart  to  you  the  love  of  truth;  not  truth, 
vhich  is  infinite."  Like  the  psychologist  he  was,  Rodo 
mew  Uiat  beliefs  may  be  abandoned,  yet  they  leave  some- 
hing  of  themselves  behind.  We  are  what  we  were,  as  well 
iS  what  we  are.  And  when  we  are  assailed  by  doubt — if 
ve  are  strong — that  doubt  is  neither  "epicurean  idleness 
lor  affliction  or  dejection, — it  is  the  forerunner  of  a  reinte- 
pration" — the  germ  of  -a  new  truth. 

But  the  new  truth  must  proceed  farther  than  sterile  cere- 
•ration;  it  must  be  translated  into  action.  "It  is  not  the 
ruth  or  the  error  Uiat  convinces  you  which  reforms  your 


224       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

soul;  it  is  the  truth  and  the  error  that  impassion  you." 
And  more  succinctly:  "Reality  is  not  a  cold  tablet  upon 
which  are  inscribed  sentences,  but  a  live,  palpitant  engen- 
dering of  feeling  and  action." 

Rodo's  philosophy,  of  course,  implies  the  utter  negation 
of  a  false  consistency,  which  many  mistake  for  firmness  of 
character.  He  would  see  no  knighthood  in  the  knight  of 
whom  it  was  written  that  "faith  unfaithful  kept  him  falsely 
true."  He  knows,  too,  the  frequent  intervention  of  accident 
in  what  we  call  virtue  and  vice.  Paraphrasing  a  noted 
figure  in  English  theology,  he  might  well  have  said  upon 
beholding  a  criminal  led  to  the  scaffold,  "There,  but  for 
the  grace  of  God,  goes  Jose  Enrique  Rodo." 

For  this  reason  Rodo  has  no  sympathy  with  the  "uplift" 
nature  of  so  much  social  education ;  herein,  too,  lies  the  in- 
spirational character  of  his  teachings, — or  rather  his  sug- 
gestions. If  Hope  is  his  compass,  Will  (with  the  renewed 
consciousness  of  our  manifold  possibilities)  is  the  vessel 
that  carries  us  to  the  goal,  and  the  first  object  upon  which 
this  will  is  applied  is  our  own  personality.  Our  wills,  as 
our  aptitude,  may  be  dormant. 

Self-renewal  unceasingly, — self-renewal  of  personality 
and  of  that  group  of  personalities  called  a  nation;  therein 
lies  the  essence  of  the  Uruguayan's  philosophy,  which,  when 
carried  to  its  logical  conclusion  (conclusion  is  too  definite 
a  word  for  so  dynamic  a  conception)  must  inevitably  lead 
to  that  international  mind  which  corresponds  to  a  full  devel- 
opment of  personality.  Rodo  hinted  at  such  a  mind,  but 
did  not  develop  die  thought. 

The  Uruguayan  philosopher  has  been  compared  to  Em-i| 
erson.     Is  not  Rodo's  masterpiece  in  a  sense  a  vast  araplifi- 


JOSE  ENRIQUE  RODO  225 

cation  of  tlie  essay  upon  Self -Reliance?  Is  not  the  great 
New  Englaniler  equally  jealous  of  the  seal  of  personality? 
"It  is  easy  in  the  wDrkl  to  live  after  the  world's  opinion; 
it  is  easy  in  solitude  to  live  after  our  own;  hut  tlie  great 
man  is  he  who  in  the  midst  of  the  crowd  keeps  with  perfect 
sweetness  the  independence  of  solitude."  Have  we  not 
here  the  essence  of  purpose  that  actuated  Rodo's  words 
about  solitude  and  travel  and  the  harmony  of  their  teachings 
in  the  man  of  true  originality?  Is  tliere  not  in  Self-Reli- 
ance  that  same  scorn  of  a  false  consistency?  Has  not 
Emerson  in  six  words  written  what  might  well  serve  as  the 
motto  of  the  Motivos?  ''Live  ever  in  a  new  day."  Does 
he  not  likewise  declaim  against  the  worship  of  the  past? 
"The  centuries  are  conspirators  against  the  sanity  and  maj- 
esty of  the  soul."  And  nearer  still  to  the  essence  of  Rodo's 
entire  system,  long  before  tliat  Bergson  from  whom  Rodo 
is  said  to  have  received  his  suggestion:  ''This  one  fact  the 
world  hates,  that  the  soul  beqomes  (the  italics  are  Emer- 
son's) ;  for  that  forever  degrades  the  past,  turns  all  riches  to 
poverty;  all  reputation  to  a  shame;  confounds  the  saint 
with  tlie  rogue;  shoves  Jesus  and  Judas  equally  aside." 
Allowing  for  differences  of  style  and  Rodo's  lack  of  the 
Emersonian  vehemency,  the  resemblance  is,  to  say  the  least, 
most  striking.  "Every  new  mind  is  a  new  classification." 
.  .  .  '"Insist  on  yourself;  never  imitate." 

Of  course  such  resemblance  by  no  means  implies  iden- 
tity of  thought  or  purpose.  The  resemblance  may  even 
be  merely  verbal.  Yet  Rodo's  implications  are  far-reach- 
ing. He  gives  us,  in  that  masterwork,  not  so  much  a  fund 
of  thought  as  a  well  of  inspiration;  not  so  much  a  goal  as  a 
direction;  not  so  much  a  body  as  a  spirit.    This  he  achieves 


226       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITEIL\TURE 

not  by  preaching  but  by  furnishing  abundant  example;  he 
fertilizes  our  personalities,  so  to  speak,  with  the  rich  soil  of 
others.  The  Motivos  de  Proteo  should  be  known  in  every 
language  and  should  form  part  of  every  educational 
system. 

3.  El  Mirador  De  Prospero 

The  collection  of  articles  that  goes  under  the  title 
Through  Prospefo's  Window  is  valuable  as  casting  light 
upon  Rodo's  application  of  his  personality  to  the  matters  of 
the  intellectual  as  well  as  to  the  political  world.  There 
has  been  some  word  of  censure,  I  believe,  about  Rodo's 
having  inserted  a  political  essay  in  the  collection;  such 
political  activity,  which  arose  from  the  master's  sense  of 
duty  to  his  nation,  was  in  conformity  with  his  own  call  for 
something  more  than  pure  thinking, — for  the  translation  of 
action  into  thought.  There  are  so  many  retrogressive  or 
stagnant  spirits  in  contemporary  life  who  can  tolerate  or 
even  applaud  the  dynamic  conceptions  which  a  man  ex- 
presses in  his  poetry  or  his  other  creative  literature,  but 
who,  when  they  find  him  intent  upon  bringing  them  about 
in  reality,  are  seized  with  concern  or  dismay.  Rodo  was 
not  what  we  could  call  a  conservative;  on  the  other  hand, 
he  was  by  no  means  an  extremist;  is  was  not  in  his  nature 
to  be  extreme.  His  political  views,  aptly  stated  in  a  notable 
essay  upon  labor  conditions  in  Uruguay,  show  his  ten- 
dency to  be  a  progressive  one, — not  so  much  socialistic 
(like  Chocano's  poetic  internationalism  and  Blanco-Fom 
bona's  active  socialism)  as  patient  reform.  Yet,  as  wr 
shall  soon  note  from  an  examination  of  the  speech — whicl 
forms,  in  El  Mirador  de  Prospero,  an  illuminative  excep- 


JOSE  ENRIQUE  RODO  227 

tion  amid  the  more  purely  literary  discussions — it  is  as 
iiuich  a  matter  of  patience,  or  time,  as  anything  el-^e,  that 
separates  Kodo  from  his  confreres.  Besides,  he  was  think- 
ing in  terms  of  Uruguay.  For  the  rest,  we  have  noted  in 
him  a  continental  aspiration  that  is  a  logical  step  toward 
the  international  spirit.  Had  he  lived  to  complete  his 
AV/r  Motircs  of  Proteus,^"  who  knows  what  changes  he 
would  have  brought  back  from  his  trip  to  Europe  at  a  time 
when  an  old  world  and  an  old  economic  system  were  crumb- 
ling in  the  fires  of  a  vast  crucible? 

The  sights  that  Prospero  beholds  through  his  window 
comprise  a  varied  yet  unified  panorama.  The  advantage 
of  such  a  collection  (organic  only  in  the  sense  that  it  is 
composed  of  views  as  seen  by  a  singularly  composed  and 
ordered  spirit)  is  that  tiie  window  may  be  closed  at  will, 
and  our  looking  resumed  whenever  we  please.  Or,  to  quote 
tlie  epigraph,  from  Taine:  "J'aime,  je  I'avoue,  ces  sortes 
de  livres.  D'abord  on  pent  jeter  le  volume  au  bout  de 
vingt  pages,  commencer  par  la  fin,  ou  au  milieu;  vous  n'y 
eles  pas  serv^iteur,  mais  maitre;  vous  pouvez  le  traiter 
comme  journal ;  en  effet,  c'est  le  journal  d'un  esprit." 

And-  in  fact,  these  selections  from  Rodo's  journalistic 
labors  are  in  the  best  sense  a  "journal  of  a  spirit."  There 
are  such  sterling  essays  as  that  on  Bolivar,  on  Juan  Carlos 
Gomez,  on  Juan  Maria  Gutierrez  and  his  epoch  (an  account 
that  is  indispensable  to  all  who  would  understand  the  ori- 
gins of  "literary  Americanism"  as  well  as  the  native  contri- 
bution of  Spanish  America  to  Castilian  letters,)  on  Samuel 

1"  Incomplete,  and  not  yet  published.     A  collection  of  articles  written  in 
I     Europe,   under   the   title   El   Camino   de  Paros,  was  published  in   1918   in 
Valencia,  bv  the  Editorial  Valencia. 


228       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

Blixen,  and  other  important  literary  figures  of  the  conti- 
nent; there  are  inimitable  cameos  expressive  of  his  attitude 
toward  art, — its  inspiration  and  its  problems;  there  are  re- 
views of  novels  and  dramas  that  embody  valuable  state- 
ments; there  are  impressionistic  gems,  sheer  poetry  of 
thought,  such  as  the  piece  on  the  sea  which  was  quoted  at  the 
beginning.  And  wafting  through  every  paragraph  is  the 
spirit  of  an  Ariel,  a  Proteus,  a  Prospero.  It  is  not  only  the 
beauty  of  language  and  thought  that  attracts  one  to  Rodo, 
it  is  the  beauty  of  his  attitude;  as  much  as  what  he  says, 
as  much  a^  how  he  says  it,  is  his  outlook  upon  the  world  of 
thought  and  action,  so  truly  symbolized  in  the  ever-chang- 
ing yet  constant  sea. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  analyze  the  book  in  detail.  I  shall 
choose  just  enough  to  complete  an  adequate  knowledge  of 
the  harmonious  personality, — ^his  political  views,  his  atti- 
tude toward  the  continental  dream  of  Bolivar  (a  more  than 
political  question,  implying  all  the  spiritual  outgrowths  of 
an  economic  substructure),  his  beautiful  cameos  that  seem 
the  embodiment  of  a  lyric  intellec^^ 

Rodo's  Del  Trabajo  Obrero  en  el  Uruguay  reveals  him 
as  a  deep  student  of  practical,  world-wide  problems.  He  is 
too  well  versed  in  economics  to  accept  the  shallow  notion, 
promulgated  by  many  politicians  for  purposes  best  known 
to  themselves,  that  the  struggle  between  capital  and  labor 
is  a  product  of  this  age;  he  sees  that  our  age  intensified 
rather  than  originated  that  antagonism.  He  is  also  suffi- 
ciently cognizant  of  environmental  influences  to  shun  fiat 
legislation  in  favor  of  laws  that  take  into  account  specified 
national  conditions  as  well  as  general  revolutionary  aims.' 
Speaking  for  Uruguay,  in  which  the  acute  problems  of 


JOSE  ENRIQUE  RODO  229 

capitalism  and  the  proletariat  had  not  yet  appeared,  he 
favored  a  social  prophylaxis, — measures  destined  to  antici- 
pate future  contingencies.  Altliougli  his  view  of  capital  is, 
to  many  contemporary  tliinkers,  conservative,  none  was 
more  aware  that  the  interests  of  society  are  deeply  hound 
up  with  justice  to  the  lahorer, — a  justice  that  has  all  too 
often  been  largely  verbal  or  promissory.  Students  of  our 
labor  problems,  especially  of  the  length  of  the  working  day, 
will  find  excellent  data  in  Rodo's  speech,  from  which  they 
may  draw  conclusions  not  entirely  in  consonance  with  those 
of  tlie  speaker. 

Rodo  scores  a  good  point  when  he  indicates  that  terms 
like  individualism  and  socialism,  rather  than  antagonistic, 
are  harmonious  and  complementary,  just  like  authority  and 
liberty,  right  and  duty.  He  is  very  sensitive  to  the  harm 
being  worked  by  the  exploitation  of  the  toiler, — and  insists 
that  his  moral  as  well  as  physical  interests  must  be  rigor- 
ously guarded.  He  is  alive  to  the  fallacy  of  the  so-called 
"freedom  of  contract" — a  fallacy  into  which  many  of  our 
own  workingmen  have  been  led  by  some  of  our  highest 
officials,  themselves  deceived  or  deceiving.  "The  op- 
pressed laborer  to  whom  is  granted  the  right  to  liberate 
himself  (i.  e.,  from  his  work)  is  not  a  slave;  but  if  that 
flight  or  liberation  which  is  conceded  to  him  as  a  right  is  to 
him  equivalent  to  hunger  and  death,  what  difference  is  there 
between  his  condition  and  that  of  a  slave,  unless  it  be  the 
emptiness  of  a  name?"  And  it  might  have  been  expected 
from  the  author  of  Ariel  that  his  views  upon  child  labor 
would  be  more  enlightening  than  those  which  characterize 
our  own  ostensibly  civilized  mill-owners.  Nor  is  Rodo's 
argument  a  "sentimental"  one  (have  we  really  done  with 


230       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

sentimentality?) ;  he  regards  the  matter  in  the  light  of  the 
nation's  vital  energies.  Is  not,  after  all,  every  victory  for 
the  ideal  a  practical  victory  as  well,  w^hen  viewed  in  the 
broad  light  of  universal  welfare?  Rodo  wastes  no  time, 
similarly,  with  "woman's  place  is  the  home," — a  slogan 
that  sounds  with  such  ill  grace  from  the  lips  of  so  many  of 
our  own  employers  who,  because  of  cheaper  labor,  have 
done  their  share  to  draw  woman  from  that  hypothetical 
hearth  of  domestic  felicity.  He  knows  that  woman  is  in 
industry  and  that,  like  the  child,  she  is  being  exploited 
physically,  mentally,  economically;  with  his  ever-present 
sense  of  the  future,  he  realizes  the  dangers  to  the  race  aris- 
ing from  maltreatment  of  woman  in  industry;  he  pleads 
(to  think  that  it  should  be  necessary  in  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury!) for  the  official  recognition  of  maternity  among  indus- 
trial workers,  with  compensatory  privileges  of  adequate 
rest. 

Finally,  as  one  would  have  foreseen  from  a  study  of 
Motives  de  Proteo,  he  reminds  us — and  how  often  we  need 
the  reminder,  who  enact  laws  that  enslave  us  in  their 
perpetuity,  though  they  are  but  the  creatures  of  our  own 
very  fallible  selves — that  "laws  are  rectifiable,"  and  that 
they  may  be  changed  in  the  light  of  new  knowledge. 

Rodo's  speech  is  a  thorough,  sincere  study  of  an  all- 
important  topic.  He  shows  evidence  of  deep  delving,  and 
presents  his  opinions  with  a  clarity  and  directness  remark- 
able for  a  politico-economic  essay.  There  are  the  same 
even  style,  broad  humanity,  fairness,  tolerance  that  distin- 
guish everything  he  wrote.  Before  such  a  master  as  this, 
economics  ceases  to  be  the  "dismal  science"  that  abysmal  ^ 
stylists  have  made  it;  it  acquires,  in  fact,  something  of  "la 


JOSE  ENRIQUE  R0D6  231 

gaie  science"  itself!  One  need  by  no  means  assent  to 
Rodo's  premises  or  to  all  of  his  conclusions  to  see  that  his 
methoil  of  approach  and  his  attitude  are  eniineiUly  prefer- 
able to  the  insincere  "radicalism"  of  the  present  day  so  fre- 
quently encountered  in  "labor  leaders"  and  large  em- 
ployers alike.  Wherever  he  went,  Roilo  shed  a  soft,  warm 
glow.  In  life,  in  speech,  in  thought,  his  was  the  golden 
medium;  and  if,  at  times,  he  did  not  advance  far  enough  to 
please  some  of  us.  we  should  recognize  that  his  medium  was 
none  die  less  golden. 

For  evidence  of  his  intense  Hispano-Americanism  one 
need  but  open  the  works  of  Rodo  almost  at  random.  El 
Mirador  de  Prospero  teems  with  an  ardent  Spanish-Amer- 
icanism,— diere  is  now  and  then  evident  (see  the  paper  on 
La  Espana  Nina)  a  certain  Pan-Hispanism  such  as  has  been 
current  in  recent  literature. 

In  a  speech  delivered  in  Chile  on  October  8,  1905,  upon 
the  occasion  of  the  return  to  the  country  of  Juan  Carlos 
Gomez's  remains,  he  concluded  with  the  significant  declara- 
tion that  "the  idea  of  the  fatherland  is  a  lofty  one;  but 
among  the  peoples  of  Latin  America,  amid  this  living  har- 
mony of  nations  bound  by  all  the  ties  of  tradition,  race, 
institutions  and  language,  such  as  were  never  presented  by 
the  history  of  the  world  in  such  union  and  comprising  so 
vast  an  extent,  we  may  well  say  that  there  is  something 
loftier  than  the  idea  of  nation,  and  that  is,  the  idea  of 
America;  the  idea  of  America  conceived  as  a  great  and 
imperishable  unity,  as  a  glorious,  vast  fatherland,  with  its 
heroes,  its  educators,  its  tribunes;  from  the  gulf  of  Mexico 
to  the  sempiternal  ice  of  the  South. 

"Sarmiento,  Bilbao,  Marti,  Bello  and  Montalvo  are  not 


232       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

the  writers  of  one  or  another  part  of  America,  but  they 
are  rather  the  citizens  of  (Spanish)  American  intellect- 
uality." 

Is  this  not  a  species  of  super-patriotism?  Is  this  not, 
if  not  internationalism,  at  least  intemationism?  And  by 
a  lofty  and  logical  expansion  of  the  patriotic  conception,  is 
it  not  possible  to  reach  an  allegiance  that  embraces  tlie 
world  of  humanity? 

To  return,  however,  to  Rodo:  in  Magna  Patria  he  declares 
succinctly  tliat  "tlie  fatherland  of  Spanish  Americans  is 
Spanish   America.     Within  the  feeling  for  one's  nation 
resides  the  not  less  natural  and  indestructible  sense  of 
allegiance  to  one's  province,  region,  district ;  and  provinces, 
regions  or  districts  of  that  great  Patria  of  ours  are  the  na- 
tions into  which  it  is  divided  politically.     For  my  part,  I 
have  always  so  understood  it,  or  rather,  I  have  always  so 
felt  it.     The  political  unity  which  this  moral  unity  conse-  < 
crates  and  incarnates — Bolivar's  dream — is  still  a  dream' 
the  realization  of  which,  perhaps,  today's  generations  will 
not  witness.     What  does  that  matter!     Italy  was  not  merely  I 
Metternich's  'geographical  expression'  before  Garibaldi's  i 
sword  and  Mazzini's  apostolate  constituted  it  into  a  political  ii 
expression.     It  was  the  idea,  the  numen  of  the  fatherland,  ii 
the  fatherland  itself  consecrated  by  all  the  holy  oil  of  tra- 
dition, justice  and  glory.     United,  personal  Italy  already; 
existed;  less  corporeal,  but  not  less  real;  less  tangible,  but 50 
not  less  vibrant  and  intense  than  when  it  assumed  color 
and  outline  upon  the  map  of  the  nations." 

And  in  La  Espafia  Nina:  "I  have  never  felt  a  doubt  as 
to  the  future  of  this  America  bom  of  Spain.  I  have  ever 
believed  that  in  (Spanish)  America,  the  genius  of  Spain,    | 


Ai 


JOSE  ENRIQUE  RODO  233 

and  the  most  subtle  essence  of  its  genius,  which  is  its  Ian- 
age,  possesses  the  firm  bridge  over  whicli  it  will  cross 
1!  •  streams  of  the  centuries.   ..."...  "My  American 
p:  i(l( — which  is  pride  of  land,  and  is,  moreover,  pride  of 
race — is  satisfied  with  nothing  less  than  the  assurance  that 
the  distant  house,  whence  comes  the  escutcheon  chiselled 
"It  upon  the  door  to  my  owii,  will  remain  ever  standing, 
ly  firm,  very  beautiful  and  highly  revered."  ...  "I 
have  thus  habituated  myself  to  effacing  from  my  imagina- 
tion the  common  image  of  an  old,  decrepit  Spain,  and  to 
associate,  with  die  idea  of  Spain,  ideas  of  childhood,  future, 
hope."     Nor  is  Rodo's  optimism  strained.     The  current 
i(h\i  that  old  Spain  is  decrepit  becomes  ridiculous  in  the 
ii^ht  of  its  unceasing  intellectual  foment.     Economically, 
— tliat  is  another  question;  but  Cervantes  wrote  Don  Quix- 
ote in  poverty.   .   .   . 

The  short  article  upon  I bero- America  is  important  not 
only  for  its  hint  of  a  Portuguese- American  and  Spanish- 
American  entente  (beautifully  symbolized  in  the  Amazon 
and  the  La  Plata  rivers)  but  also  for  its  contribution  to  a 
question  of  terminofogy  that  has  only  lately  caused  dis- 
cussion in  Spain  and  in  America.  It  will  be  noticed,  in 
the  excerpt  quoted  above  from  Rodo's  speech  on  Juan 
Carlos  Gomez,  that  he  employed  the  term  "Latin  America"; 
the  term,  it  seems,  is  a  new  one,  and  not  at  all  to  the  liking 
of  many  Hispanophiles.  The  outlines  of  the  arguments 
against  the  name  "Latin  America"  and  in  favor  of  some 
such  term  as  "Hispanic"  or  "Spanish"  or  even  "Ibero- 
America"  may  be  summed  up  as  follows: 

1.  The  adjective  Latin  as  used  in  the  objectionable  term 
properly  applies  to  the  group  of  tongues  and  peoples  de- 


234       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITEIL\TURE 

rived  from  ancient  Latium.  In  such  a  sense  the  word  em- 
braces not  only  Spain  and  Portugal,  who  were  chiefly  re- 
sponsible for  the  colonization,  civilization  and  Christian- 
ization  of  South  America  and  Central  America,  but  also 
France,  Italy  and  Rumania, — countries  which  had  little  or 
nothing  to  do  with  the  republics  that  have  sprung  up  from 
the  Spanish  and  Portuguese  roots  in  the  Western  hemi- 
sphere. The  use  of  the  adjective  Latin,  then,  works  an 
injustice  upon  the  mother  countries  by  implying  credit  to 
France  and  Italy  as  well,  and  sinking  Spanish  and  Portu- 
guese identity  in  the  common  term  Latin.  If  it  be  argued 
that  the  linguistic  basis  surely  is  Latin,  the  opponents  come 
back,  quite  properly,  with  the  answer  that  proceeding  on 
linguistic  lines,  the  United  States  and  Canada  might  be 
spoken  of  as  Teutonic  America — a  term  tlie  falsity  of  which 
is  at  once  evident. 

2.  The  terms  Spanish  America  and  Spanish-American 
have  been  used  for  the  past  four  centuries ;  historically  they 
are  correct;  they  have  been  sanctified  by  usage.  Why 
substitute  an  intruder  like  Latin  America  which  has  come 
to  life  only  during  the  past  ten  years,  partly  through  the 
desire  of  certain  Latin  countries  to  receive  credit  where 
it  is  not  due  them? 

3.  If  it  be  objected  that  Spanish  America  seems  to  leave 
out  Brazil,  where  the  language  spoken  is  Portuguese,  the 
proponents  reply  that  the  term  Spanish  or  Hispanic  has 
long  been  recognized  as  including  both  Spanish  and  Por- 
tuguese; that  so  notable  a  Portuguese  as  Almeida  Garrett 
has  argued  in  its  favor,  and  that  Rodo  has  shown  that  the 
word  Spanish  is  a  geographical  name  originally,  not  one 
of  nationality  or  political  import.     Rodo,  too,  asserts,  in 


JOSE  ENRIQUE  RODO  235 

the  same  paragraphs  upon  Ibero- America,  that  Almeida 
Garii'tt,  the  great  national  poet  of  Portugal,  believed  that 
the  Portup:uese,  without  jin>jiidice  to  their  independent 
spirit,  eould  call  lhem:^elves  Spaniards. 

It  will  be  seen,  then,  that  Rodo  suggested  the  corrective 
to  his  own  use  of  the  objectionable  term.  But  has  a  really 
salisfactor\'  tenn  Ik^i  reached?  Does  "Hispanic  Amer- 
ica" really  fill  the  bill?  Or  "Spanish  America?"  Or 
even  "Ibero-America"? 

The  proponents  of  the  new  terms  (and  we  may  agree 
at  once  that  the  old  term  is  somewhat  of  a  misnomer)  must 
recognize  that  there  is  certain  to  be  confusion;  Professor 
Elspinosa,  the  editor  of  Hispania,  suggests  that  when  Brazil 
is  meant  to  be  included  the  general  term  Hispanic  America 
be  used,  while  for  the  Spanish  republics,  Spanish  America 
be  employed.  In  support  of  his  stand  for  "Hispanic"  he 
points  to  the  use  of  the  word  in  its  Spanish-Portuguese 
meaning  as  a  name  for  historical  reviews,  school  series,  the 
Hispanic  Society  of  America,  and  so  on.  It  will  be  noted 
that  all  these  cases  are  closely  allied  to  scholarship  rather 
than  to  popular  usage. 

It  is  at  this  point  that  Espinosa  and  those  who  side  with 
him  will  encounter  trouble,  if  not  opposition.  There  is  no 
doubt  that  a  good  case  is  made  out  against  the  use  of  the 
adjective  Latin  in  the  designation.  The  characterization 
is  too  broad,  too  inclusive;  this  holds  true  whether  any  na- 
tions are  trying  to  belittle  the  part  played  by  Spain  and 
Portugal  or  not.  But  the  very  reason  for  the  growing 
prominence  of  this  inadequate,  misleading  and  unjust  ad- 
» jective  is  also  the  reason  why,  in  all  probability,  Espinosa's 
substitution  or  restitution  of  Hispanic  or  Spanish  America, 


236       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

will  not  find  favor  with  the  man  in  the  street.  And  the 
man  and  woman  in  the  street  are  to  be  considered  if  scholar- 
ship is  to  be  anything  more  than  a  close  intellectual  corpora- 
tion. After  all,  no  scholar  would  be  for  a  moment  in  doubt 
as  to  what  Latin  America  stood  for,  any  more  than  a  silver 
expert  would  imagine  that  German  silver  was  actually  pure 
silver  from  Germany.  The  use  of  "Latin  America"  origin- 
ated through  a  desire  to  distinguish  between  Brazil  and  the 
Spanish-speaking  republics,  and  at  the  same  time  have  a 
designation  to  cover  them  as  a  whole.  "South  America" 
is  inadequate  because  inexact;  it  leaves  out  Central  Amer- 
ica. Spanish  America  will  not  do,  except  for  the  scholar, 
who  does  not  need  it  in  the  first  place.  To  the  average  man 
and  woman,  regardless  of  four  centuries  of  usage  and  of  the 
historical  connotations  imbedded  in  the  word,  Spanish  will 
mean  pertaining  to  Spain.  The  same,  in  less  degree,  holds 
true  for  Hispanic,  which,  though  more  clearly  inclusive  of 
both  Spain  and  Portugal,  and  used  so  by  scholars,  signifies 
Spanish  to  the  average  person,  if  it  is  ever  used  by  that 
average  person.  "Ibero-America"  might  do,  even  if  it 
does  seem  at  first  "high-brow" ;  etymologically  it  is  fully  as 
good  as  Hispanic.  And  in  regard  to  the  term  Spanish,  as 
applied  to  both  Brazil  and  the  Spanish-speaking  countries, 
it  does  not  seem  to  have  occurred  to  its  defenders  that,  de- 
spite Almeida  Garrett,  to  more  tlian  one  Portuguese  it 
might  sound  just  as  exclusive  of  Portuguese  rights  as  the 
term  Latin  seems  to  the  aforementioned  defenders  inappre- 
ciative  of  the  efforts  of  Spain  and  Portugal  together. 

For  our  present  purpose,  however,  it  is  of  greater  im- 
portance to  point  out  that  Rodo's  admirable  little  essay. 
is  more  than  an  argument  about  terminology;  it  is  another 


JOSt  ENRIQUE  RODO  237 

i-[)ect  of  his  continental  Uiouglit, — thought  becoming  truly 
niilinental  in  its  embracing  of  a  sister  language  and  a  sis- 
1 1  civilization." 

01  Pan-Anicricanisni,  as  \vc  undcrstaiui  it,  there  is  little 
3r  none  in  Rodo.  He  does  not  underestimate  us,  but  he 
feels  strongly  tliat  imitation  of  us  would  run  counter  to 
raditional  inheritances.  Indeed,  he  is  the  avowed  enemy 
)f  imitation  in  every  field,  for  as  we  may  have  divined 
iiiiu  tlie  lips  of  Proteus,  mere  imitation  is  the  negation  of 
ui-onality,  national  as  well  as  individual.  A  better  mu- 
ual  understanding  there  well  could  be, — an  understanding 
n  which  imitation  need  play  no  part,  and  one  of  the  results 
)f  which  should  be  an  advantageous  cross-fertilization. 
!     Of  the  charmingly  beautiful  literary  cameos  in  which 

j  »i  There  is  an  easy  way  out  of  the  matter.  Why  not  be  content  to  speak 
l)f  Spanish  America  and  Portuguese  America?  These  designations  mean 
i'xactly  what  they  say;  they  are  readily  seized  by  the  scholar  and  the  aver- 
ige  person  alike;  they  require  no  knowledge  of  etymology,  history,  or 
lational  jealousies.  They  are  ideal  terminologies,  because  they  explain  at 
he  same  time  as  they  name.  And  while  we  are  waiting  for  an  ideal  term 
hat  shall  include,  at  the  same  time,  both  the  Spanish  and  the  Portuguese 
elements  of  this  hemisphere,  will  not  someone  arise  and  call  to  our  atten- 
ion  the  complacent  use  we  of  the  North  make  of  the  word  American? 
For  the  rest  of  the  continent,  as  well  as  all  of  the  land  south  of  the  Isth- 
nus  of  Panama,  is  filled  with  Americans — of  the  South,  to  be  sure,  but 
\mericans  none  the  less.  The  same  state  of  affairs,  reversed,  might  be 
railed  to  the  attention  of  the  other  Americans,  by  whom  the  word  '■.\mer- 
cano"  is  rarely  meant,  of  course,  to  include  us. 

Philology,  too.  it  would  seem,  has  its  irredentists  in  the  land  of  words, 
"or  that  reason  it  may  be  worth  while,  in  most  friendly  spirit,  to  call  to  the 
tttention  of  Professor  Espinosa  that  the  quarterly  which  he  edits — a  fine 
nagazine  that  deserves  to  grow  rapidly — is  called  Hispania:  A  Quarterly 
fournal  Devoted  to  the  Interests  of  Teachers  of  Spanish,  etc.  Not  teach- 
ers of  Spanish  and  Portuguese,  you  will  notice.  Now,  when  intellectual 
ioumals  use  the  word  Hispania  in  their  titles  to  denote  something  exclu- 
jively  Spanish,  how  can  one  reasonably  expect  its  Spanish-Portuguese 
Tieaninp  to  become  current  among  teachers,  let  alone  the  average  man  and 
it'oman  ? 


238       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

Rodo  is  so  rich,  I  shall  translate  two  in  full.     The  first  re- 1 
veals  Rodo  as  a  lover  of  formal  beauty;  the  second  initiates 
us  into  one  of  the  most  peculiar  qualities  of  his  style, — a 
certain  religious  hush  that  comes  over  lonely  landscapes 
at  twilight.     From  the  Geste  of  Form  we  may  easily  gather 
an  adequate  notion  of  Rodo's  verbal  punctiliousness  that 
would  seem  to  modify  the  statement  of  some  of  his  friends 
that  his  writings  leaped  full-grown  from  the  forehead  of  the  ^ 
great  Uruguayan.     Struggle  there  certainly  was,  though  it  I 
may  not  have  been  visible  in  the  scrawls  and  scratches  of 
the  agonizing  sheets  that  make  the  author's  labor  such  a 
joy — and  such  a  torture. 

THE    GESTE    OF    FORM 

"What  a  prodigious  transformation  is  that  undergone  by 
words  meek  and  inert  in  the  flock  of  common  style,  when 
they  are  convoked  and  commanded  by  the  genius  of  ar 
artist.  .  .  .  From  the  very  moment  in  which  you  desire  tc 
make  an  art, — a  plastic  and  musical  art — of  expression, 
you  sink  into  it  a  spur  that  arouses  all  its  rebellious  im 
pulses.     The  word,  a  living,  wilful  being,  looks  at  you  ther 
from  the  nib  of  the  pen,  which  pricks  it  in  an  attempt  tc 
subject  it;  it  disputes  with  you,  compels  you  to  meet  it 
it  possesses  a  soul  and  a  physiognomy.     Revealing  to  you 
in  its  rebellion,  all  its  innermost  content,  it  often  oblige: 
you  to  return  to  it  the  freedom  of  which  you  desired  t( 
deprive  it,  and  to  summon  another,  which  comes,  coyb 
and  sullenly,  to  the  yoke  of  steel.     And  diere  are  time 
in  which  the  battle  of  these  diminutive  monsters  exalts  an< 
exhausts  you  like  a  desperate  struggle  for  fortune  an< 


JOSE  ENRIQUE  R0D6  239 

■  honor.  All  the  voluptuousness  of  heroism  is  contained  in 
this  unknown  contest.  You  feel  alternately  the  intoxication 
of  the  conqueror,  the  qualms  of  the  timorous,  the  wrathful 
exaltation  of  the  wouiuletl.  You  understand,  before  the 
docility  of  a  phrase  that  falls  conquered  at  your  feet,  the 

'  savage  cry  of  triumph.  You  learn,  when  the  scarcely 
grasped  form  escapes  you,  how  it  is  that  the  anguish  of 
failure  enters  the  heart.  Your  whole  organism  vibrates 
like  the  earth  atremble  with  the  crashing  palpitation  of 
battle.     As  upon  the  field  where  the  struggle  took  place, 

I  there  remain  afterward  the  signs  of  the  fire  that  has  passed, 
in  your  imagination  and  in  your  nerves.  Upon  the  black- 
ened pages  you  leave  something  of  your  being  and  of  your 
life. — What,  besides  this,  is  worth  the  complacent  spon- 
taneity of  him  who  opposes  no  personal  resistance  to  the 
affluence  of  the  colorless,  unexpressixe  phrase,  no  proud  in- 
tractibility  to  the  rebellion  of  the  word  which  refuses  to 
give  up  its  soul  and  its  color?  .  .  .  For  the  struggle  with 
style  shtjuld  not  be  confused  with  llie  cold  pertinacity  of 
rhetoric,  which  adjusts  painstakingly,  in  the  mosaic  of  its 
conventional  correctness,  words  that  have  not  been  mois- 
tened by  the  warm  breath  of  the  soul.  This  would  be  to 
compare  a  game  of  chess  with  a  combat  in  which  blood  flows 
and  an  empire  is  at  stake.     The  struggle  for  style  is  an  epic 

which  has  as  its  field  of  action  our  innermost  nature,  the 

I 

deepest  profundities  of  our  being.  The  poems  of  war  do 
not  speak  to  you  of  strength  more  superb,  of  carnage  more 
cruel,  nor,  in  victory,  of  jubilation  more  lofty  or  divine. 
.  .  .  Oh,  formidable,  beautiful  Iliad!  Iliad  of  the  heart 
of  artists,  from  whose  unknown  combats  are  bom  into  the 
world  joy,  enthusiasm  and  light  as  from  the  heroism  and 


240       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AiMERICAN  LITERATURE 

the  blood  of  the  true  epics!  You  should  some  time  have 
been  written,  so  that,  narrated  by  one  of  those  who  bore  you 
witliin  him,  there  would  endure  in  you  the  testimony  of 
one  of  the  most  moving  human  emotions.  And  your 
Homer  might  have  been  Gustave  Flaubert." 

Is  that  not  a  page  which  Flaubert  himself  would  have 
enjoyed? 

It  was  such  external  beauty  (and  is  it  really  external 
when  made,  as  in  the  case  of  Rodo,  an  organic  part  of 
thought?)  that  our  author  cast  about  the  beauty  of  his  ideas. 
By  no  means  is  this  an  idle  dallying  with  style  in  its  re- 
stricted sense.  It  is  the  worship  of  a  silent  prayer.  And 
just  as  Rodo's  verbal  battles  were  a  mute  Iliad,  so  was  his 
deep  apprecation  a  speechless  wonder.  How  eloquently 
has  has  expressed  this  silence  in  Los  Que  Callan! 

THOSE    WHO   ARE    SILENT 

"One  of  the  deepest  feelings  of  respect  I  have  ever  ex- 
perienced in  the  world,  is  that  which  is  produced  upon  me 
by  a  certain  lineage  of  spirits, — certainly  very  rare,  and 
difficult  to  recognize  without  having  been  received  into 
their  most  chosen  intimacy;  a  certain  lineage  of  spirits  who 
unite  to  an  infallible,  perfect,  aristocratic  sense  of  beauty 
in  matters  of  Art,  the  absolute  disinterestedness  with  which 
they  silently  profess  their  cult,  immune  to  all  stimulus  of 
vanity,  all  purposes  of  criticism  or  creation,  all  simoniac 
greed  for  fame.  They  understand  the  work  of  art  in  its 
most  delicate  shades,  with  that  fulness  of  intelligence  and 
sympathy  which  is  a  second  creation;  they  are  the  ideal, 
reader  or  spectator  of  which  the  artist  has  dreamed;  they 


JOSt  ENRIQUE  RODO  241 

offer  up  thoir  entire  soul  in  the  religious  sacrifice  of  the 
artistic  emotion,  in  that  absolute  immolation  of  tlie  person- 
ality whence  the  mysticism  of  Art  lakes  its  origin.  Tliey 
retain  within  them  the  perennial  echo  in  which  is  prolonged 
tJie  true,  original  accent  of  the  poet  and  wliich  the  crowd 
perceives  only  in  disturbed  and  incomplete  fashion, — the 
cr>'stal  clear  reflection  in  which  is  reproduced,  with  the 
matutinal  freshness  of  creative  inspiration,  the  image  of 
the  painting  or  the  statue.  They  compensate  for  triumph- 
ant, noisy  vulgarity;  for  inferior  boasts;  for  abominable 
snob  ism.  They  cherish,  in  the  cal?n  and  sheltered  recess  of 
tlicir  devoted  memory,  names  and  works  which  the  in- 
justice and  the  indolence  of  an  epoch  have  condemned  to 
common  oblivion.  For  them  the  lie  stamped  upon  the  false 
coin  of  renown  and  glory  has  no  currency.  Within  their 
secret  disdain,  animated  by  a  serene  and  terrible  certainty, 
they  bear  the  hell  whence  those  w^ill  not  be  able  to  escape 
who  attain  success  by  committing  crimes  against  beauty, 
against  taste,  against  noble  pride.  And  they  keep  silent. 
.  .  .  And  they  pass  through  the  world  with  an  indifferent, 
almost  common  appearance.  And  as  in  tlie  chapel  of  a 
mysterious,  proscribed  cult,  they  conceal,  within  their  deep- 
est self,  the  tabernacle  of  this  ideal  love,  which  beautifi.es 
the  myster>'  like  the  modesty  of  a  sweetheart. 

'*Do  you  doubt  that  such  souls  exist?  ...  I  have  come 
to  know  some,  after  having  known  only  the  opaque  film 
that  veiled  them  from  my  sight.  And  ever  since  I  have 
discovered  them  their  presence  dominates  me,  subjects  me 
with  the  sense  of  a  superiority  that  I  do  not  recognize,  so 
Mmperious  and  of  such  high  character  is  it,  either  in  the 
creative  artist  whom  I  most  admire  or  in  the  magisterial 


242       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

wisdom  that  inspires  me  with  most  respect.     For  these 
souls  of  celestial  silence  are  the  only  ones  who  have  given 
me  the  complete  intuition  of  how  much  there  is  that  is 
vulgar  and  petty  in  all  this  struggle  for  notoriety,  this 
sensualism  of  admiration  and  applause, — the  coarse  alloy 
that  we  of  the  literary  comedy  compound  with  the  gold  of 
our  ideality  of  love  and  beauty.     Only  they  know  how  to 
love  you,  Beauty,  as  you,  oh  Goddess,  deserve  to  be  loved! 
In  the  company  of  these  souls  I  am  overwhelmed  by  I  do 
not  know  what  noble  shame  of  being  an  author,  a  profes- 
sional writer.     And  when  I  return  to  this  task,  they  com- 
prise the  unknown  and  unknowable  public  that  most  exalts 
and  most  tortures  me.     To  this  public  I  commend  myself, 
with  an  austere  and  melancholy  hope,  as  one  who  commends^ 
himself  to  the  justice  of  a  posterity  that  he  will  never  be- 
hold, whenever  I  believe  that  a  word  of  mine  has  not  been 
understood  in  all  its  virtue  and  beauty;  when  a  creature  of 
my  imagination  has  not  found  the  loving  bosom  to  receive 
it.     And  it  is  of  this  public  that  I  think,  filled  widi  an 
innermost  disquietude, — as  if  anguished  with  the  impossi 
ble  desire  of  learning  the  truth  from  the  lips  of  a  marblt 
god, — when  applause  and  praises  v/ish  to  persuade  me  tha 
something  good  and  beautiful  has  blossomed  from  my  sou! 
"Ah,  how  many  of  these  self-denying  monks  of  beaut] 
pass   you    by    without   your    recognizing    them;    perhap; 
scorned  by  you.  .  .  .  Perhaps  there  is  one  of  them  in  tha 
indeterminate,  colorless  spectator  who  occupies  his  chair  ii 
the  theatre,  not  far  from  yours,  applauding  as  much  as  th 
rest,  assenting  with  trivial  remarks  to  his  neighbor's  con: 
ments,  being  lost  in  the  crowd  as  it  leaves.    Perhaps  anolhe 
is  hidden  behind  the  mask  of  that  traveler  who,  with  th 


JOSE  ENRIQUE  KODO  243 

appearance  of  a  merchant,  reads,  opposite  your  seat  in  tlie 
train,  a  hook  that  may  he  a  Bacih^kcr  guiik-  as  well  as  a 
pot>m  hy  W  ilile  or  a  novel  hy  d'Annunzio.  Perhaps  you 
will  discover  still  another  in  that  fellow  whom  popular 
opinion — cruel  irony! — judges  as  an  unsuccessful  poet, 
ii'cling  deep  disdain  for  his  impotence;  for  it  does  not  know 
his  premature  renunciation  was  spontaneous  and  most  lofty 
ri'Iigiosity,'"  and  that  in  his  aversion  toward  speaking  of 

,  art  with  those  who  were  his  rivals  and  friends  there  is  only 
the  delicacy  of  a  transfigured  sensihility  and  the  conscious- 
ness of  a  stranger's  solitude.  ...  In  one  or  another  dis- 
I'liise,  they  pass  in  tlieir  irrevocable  silence.  And  this  si- 
li  nee  is  neither  humility  nor  pride.  It  is  simply  the  com- 
plete possession  of  a  boon  that  carries  its  end  and  its  recom- 
pense within  itself,  and  for  this  reason  contains  itself  within 
t  -  own  amplitude,  without  aspiring  to  break  its  bonds  im- 
petuously; like  die  wine  which,  when  it  has  matured,  forgets 
the  restlessness  and  the  seedlings  of  fermentation,  or  like  the 
-plendor  of  die  serene  night  which,  ecstatic  in  the  soft  glory 
of  its  lights  does  not  publish  it  with  the  flashes  of  the  light- 

,  nins;  or  the  music  of  the  sun." 

This  is  one  of  the  fundamental  passages  in  Rodo;  it  gives 
us  to  behold  in  him  just  such  a  silent  potent  figure  as  he 

,  speaks  of, — just  such  a  hushed  worshipper  of  beauty  as  he 
describes.  It  is,  in  the  original  at  least,  an  excellent  ex- 
ample of  a  musical,  suggestive,  luminous  prose  that  pro- 

I  duced,  in  the  words  of  one  of  his  chief  commentators,^^ 
"pages  of  so  radiant  a  serenity  that  they  inspire  the  same 
melancholy  as  days  that  are  too  beautiful." 

'2  ^lay  this  contain  a  hint  as  to  Rodo's  own  early  renunciation  of  poetry? 
•'Conzalo  Zaldumbide,  in  Mercurc  de  France,  July  16,  1917. 


244       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

The  ethical  aspect  of  Rodo's  work  has  been  succinctly 
treated  by  Pedro  Henriquez  Urena  in  a  lecture  given  be- 
fore the  Ateneo  de  Mexico  on  August  22,  1910,  and  since 
reprinted  in  several  Spanish  publications.  Sefior  Henri- 
quez Urena  considers  that  Rodo's  great  originality  consists 
"in  having  joined  the  cosmological  principle  of  creative 
evolution  to  the  ideal  of  a  standard  of  action  for  life." 
Much  of  Rodo  is  in  Bergson,  as  it  is  in  Goethe  and  many 
before  him.  This  lay  mystic  is  "of  the  family  of  Epic- 
tetus,  and  of  Plutarch,  of  Seneca  and  Marcus  Aurelius, 
Luis  de  Leon,  Raimonde  Sebonde,  Emerson,  Ruskin, — the 
family  over  w^hich,  sheltering  it  with  one  of  his  archangel's 
wings,  the  divine  Plato  presides." 

The  most  searching  critique  of  Rodo's  achievement  is 
from  the  pen  of  Gonzalo  Zaldumbide,  in  the  Revue  His' 
panique,  (XLIII,  103,  June,  1918,  pp.  205-307).  Seiior 
Zaldumbide's  discussion  is  a  wholesome  corrective  for  the 
excessive  praise  that  has  been  heaped  upon  the  great  Uru- 
guayan, although  the  critic's  anxiet)^  not  to  overestimate 
Rodo  leads  him,  I  believe,  to  miderestimate  such  a  cap- 
ital work  as  the  Motives  de  Proteo.  When  he  says  that 
Rodo  brought  no  new  thoughts,  and  that  his  work  will  en- 
dure chiefly  because  of  its  language,  he  is  on  the  whole 
right.  But  did  Rodo  aim  to  bring  new  thoughts?  Was  it 
not  the  love  of  truth,  not  truth,  that  Rodo  aimed  to  instil? 
And  is  not  Rodo's  insistence  upon  continuous  change  new 
in  its  implications,  and  of  necessity  so?  "The  book  (i.e., 
Motivos  de  Proteo)  to  which  he  desired  to  impart  above  all 
a  dynamic  virtue,  a  guiding  impulse,  becomes  a  static  book, 
motionless  in  its  perfection,"  writes  Zaldumbide.  But  this, 
is  little  more  than  a  play  on  words.     Rodo's  book  is  dy- 


JOSE  ENRIQUE  RODO  245 

naniic,  by  virluo  of"  the  sense  of  necessity  for  continuous 
growth  whicli  it  instils.  Nor  is  there  any  greater  value  to 
the  critic's  objection  that  only  those  who  do  not  need  that 
sense  in  tlie  first  i)laee,  will  be  benefited  by  the  dvnaniic 
view.  For  Rodo  will  penetrate  to  those  who  need  his  dy- 
namic ethics  through  tliosc  others  whose  sense  of  the  neces- 
sity for  chan<;e  has  been  quickened,  if  not  inculcated,  by 
the  Motiios.  Rodo  was  in  a  very  true  sense  an  inspircr, 
not  a  dogmatist.  "If  he  proved  the  necessity  and  the  po- 
etry of  an  ideal,  he  imposed  no  ideal  as  the  true  one,  to  the 
exclusion  of  others,"  objects  Zaldumbide.  But  this  would 
have  been  opposed  to  Rodo's  cardinal  tenet  of  the  self-de- 
termination of  personality,  so  to  speak.  There  is  more 
force  to  Zaldumbide's  objection  that  Rodo  "limited  the 
drama  of  our  destiny  to  the  immediate  problem  of  voca- 
tion.'■  Yet  the  Motivos  contain  the  corrective  to  their  own 
limitations,  because  of  their  indubitably  dynamic  effect. 
No  one  who  wishes  to  know  the  complete  Rodo  may  do  with- 
out Zaldumbide's  deeply  penetrative  study. 

Radiance,  serenity,  an  insight  that  is  none  the  less  clear 
for  its  depth,  classic  repose  combined  with  a  dynamic  con- 
ception of  modernity,  eternal  intellectual  youth — these  are 
the  distinguishing  attributes  of  a  power  whose  influence 
should  not  be  confined  to  the  Spanish  tongue. 


CHAPTER  IV 

JOSE  SANTOS  CHOCANO 

(1875-^) 

During  the  lifetime  of  Dario,  Jose  Santos  Chocano  was 
looked  upon  by  many  as  his  rival;  after  the  death  of  the 
great  Nicaraguan,  the  Peruvian  was  proclaimed  his  suc- 
cessor, although  that  distinction  is  by  no  means  an  undis- 
puted one.  We  may  well  afford  to  leave  that  particular 
matter  to  the  politics  of  art.  The  two  men  were  not  rivals; 
it  is  enough  to  read  Dario's  generous  poetic  introduction  to 
Santos  Chocano's  Alma  America  to  dispel  that  notion. 
They  were,  in  a  great  measure,  complementary  personali- 
ties, although  one  need  not  go  so  far  (as  has  been  done)  as 
to  pronounce  Dario  the  feminine  element  and  Chocano  the 
masculine.  \  In  Chocano  we  find  but  a  trace  of  the  doubt 
that  constantly  assailed  Dario  during  his  agitated,  neurotic 
career;  in  him  we  find  nothing  at  all  of  the  morbidity  tliat 
consumed  the  author  of  Cantos  de  Vida  y  Esperanza.  In 
this  respect  the  Peruvian  more  resembles  Marti  and  Blanco- 
Fombona;  it  would  seem  that  a  life  of  action  in  rebellion 
against  political  and  economic  institutions  did  not  leave 
these  spirits  time  for  morbid  introspection. 

We  shall  find  in  Chocano,  too,  a  certain  change  of  at- 
titude toward  the  United  States,  although  it  is  not  untem- 
pered  by  fear  and  veiled  threat.  He  possessed,  from  tlie 
very  first,  an  international  outlook  that  was  not  limited  to 

246 


JOSE  SANTOS  CHOCANO  247 

mere  book  reatliiigs,  and  that  did  not  confine  itself  to  ar- 
I  Stic  chaiinols.  II"  Dario  was  a  vibrant  lyre,  Chorano  is  a 
riii!';inp;  l)oll,  a  blasting;  trumpet;  look  over  liis  \vritinp!;s  from 
lis  earliest  jirotesls,  wliicli  landed  him  in  the  regulation 
t.ishioM  bihintl  the  prison  bars  of  an  unfeeling  tyrant, 
through  to  die  very  latest,  and  you  will  find  a  singular 
predominance  of  the  exclamation  point;  the  fact  is  sym- 
bolic of  a  large  part  of  his  proud,  sonorous,  arrogant,  poly- 
plionic  utterances.  He  is  as  much  bard  as  poet, — as  much 
(•j)ic  as  lyric, — as  much  universal  as  more  restrictedly 
\incrican  in  the  Spanish  sense.  And  through  all  his  la- 
irs, early  and  late,  is  evident  a  strange  duality  of  mood, 
(ii.;liii)k  and  expression.  He  is  at  once,  as  we  have  seen, 
ej)ie  and  lyric;  he  seeks  to  reconcile  the  old  Spain  with  its 
former  colonies;  to  bring  about  a  certain  Pan-AjCQ£ricani^m  ' 
that  includes  the  United  States  (although  it  is  easy  to  exag- 
■  rate  this  part  of  his  labors,  as  I  believe  it  has  been  ex- 
ijigerated) ;  he  is  classic  and  romantic,  most  sensiblv  deny- 
ing adherence  to  any  artistic  creed;  he  is  savage  and  aris- 
tocratic; h^is  the  man  of  nature,  in  Rousseau's  meaning^ 
and  the  man  of  refinement;  he  is  at  once  the  past,  the  pres- 
ent and  die  future;  he  combines  power  with  delicacy;  hei 
is  pantheistic,  yet  devoutly  and  publicly  a  modern  believer. 
The  list  of  attributes  might  be  extended  indefinitely;  be- 
neath the  apparent  contradictions  lies  a  contemporaneity 
no  less  universal  than  Dario's,  yet  expressing  itself  through 
an  entirely  different  personality.  Like  Dario,  he  feels 
that  he  has  been  bom  out  of  his  age,  yet  one  feels  the  plaint 
more  genuine  in  the  case  of  the  former,  for  Chocano  is 
very  much  a  man  of  the  times;  indeed,  he  came  a  little  too 
early  rather  than,  as  he  has  complained,  much  too  late;  this 


r 


248       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

it  was  that  brought  him  to  the  prison  cell  at  the  age  of 
eighteen  in  his  native  Callao.  To  paraphrase  Patridk 
Henry's  memorable  sentence,  Blanco-Fombona  had  his 
Gomez,  Montalvo  had  his  Garcia  Moreno,  Jose  Marmol 
had  his  Rosas,  and  so,  too,  did  Chocano  wage  battle  against 
the  entire  social  system. 

1.  Earliest  Productions 

The  earliest  productions  from  Chocano's  pen  were  Iras 
Santas  (1895) ;  En  La  Aldea  (published  later  in  the  same 
year,  although  the  poems  were  written  two  years  earlier) 
and  Azahares  (1896).  There  is  much  in  these  youthful 
efforts  that  the  author  himself  has  since,  with  good  judg- 
ment, repudiated ;  a  study  of  the  verses,  however,  repays  us 
for  the  insight  they  afford  into  the  poet's  thoughts  and  per- 
sonality, and  for  the  further  proof  they  offer  that  the  poet- 
child  is  father  to  the  man-poet. 

Iras  Santas  quivers  with  the  holy  rage  of  a  passionate, 
ideally-minded  youth  against  the  maladjustments  of  _con- 
temporary  society.  The  youngstef'Tiad  evidently  read  a 
great  deal;  he  was  familiar  with  the  same  Hugo  that  in- 
spired so  much  of  Dario's  earlier  efforts;  he  must,  as  even 
the  work  of  his  middle  peripd  shows,  have  literally  swal- 
lowed not  a  few  volumes  of  socialistic  and  anarchistic  doc- 
trine. His  conception  of  the  poet  is  that  of  the  proud 
spirit  who  must  break  yokes  and  sing  the  redemption,  for 

Siempre  al  cantar  Victor  Hugo 
temblo  Napoleon  tercero. 

The  poet  bids  Lazarus  arise  and  Justice  be  born  anew.     Not 


JOSE  SANTOS  CHOCANO  249 

the  ivory  of  the  meditative  tower,  but  tlie  iron  of  labor  and 
Mugglo  is  liis  symbol;  nor  is  our  juvenile  redeemer,  who 
kfunvs  Hisl^iblc  well  and  possesses  more  than  a  smattering 
ul  llio  classics,  very  mocK^st  in  his  pretensions.     "If  another 
Christ  be  necessary  to  succumb,  here  am  I!"  he  proclaims 
I  in  his  A  Ldzaro;  beneath  the  quasi-blasphemy  of  the  utter- 
ance, however,  flames  a  sincere  purpose  that  lights  up  all 
I  the  verses  in  the  collection  of  "sacred  wraths."     If  life  is 
a  struggle,  the  poet  must  perform  his  share;  by  a  universal 
law  all  roses  have  thorns,  and  "verses  without  thorns  are  not 
roses"!     If    verse-thorns    could    make    verse-roses,    Iras 
Santas  would  be  a  veritable  conservatory. 

It  should  be  emphasized,  however,  tliat  beneath  all  the 
bombast  of  language  and  thought  lies  a  redeeming  sincer- 
ity. The  youngster  was  a  child  of  his  age.  Was  it  not  tlie 
hey-day  of  colors?  Then  what  more  natural  for  his  ardent 
spirit  than  to  print  these  verses  in  red?  Nor  has  the  mania 
subsided;  for  some  reason  unknown  to  the  public  a  certain 
Parisian  composer  of  today  prints  his  music  in  the  same 
color.  The  singer  of  vengeance  in  Iras  Santas  is  an  enemy, 
not  to  organized  societv,^ut  to  society  ^S-^aL  present  or- 
c;;^n^ed;  he  is  a  fearless  Samson  who  (in  Excelsior!)  warns 
Delila  tliat  it  will  be  useless  to  shear  his  locks: 

Vano,  vano  sera  que  una  Dalila 
recorte  mi  melena  de  poeta.  .  .  . 

He  demands  {Para  Todos)  universa]_e^iiality,  and  demands 
it  in  picturesque  metaphors  tliaT  cast  an  undeniably  poetic 
glamor  over  communism. 

Yo  quiero  la  igualdad,  ya  que  la  suerte 
es  comun  en  punto  de  partida: 


250       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

si  todos  son  iguales  en  la  muerte, 
todos  sean  iguales  en  la  vida! 

"If  all  are  equal  in  death,  let  all  be  equal  in  life!"  The 
people  is  great,  and  if  it  be  ignorant,  that  is  the  fault  of 
the  masters;  we  are  all  "the  verses  of  a  single  poem." 
Such,  then,  is  the  mission  of  the  poet,  the  mission  of  youth; 
for  such  an  ideal  would  young  Chocano  borrow  the  lute  of 
Hugo  and  the  lash  of  Christ. 

His  El  Sermon  de  la  Montana  (Sermon  on  the  Mount) 
characteristically  blends  his  own  beliefs  with  those  of 
Christ.  It  has  been  noted  that  the  Savior  of  the  poem 
speaks  more  like  Bakounin  and  Reclus  than  the  figure  of 
the  New  Testament, — that  He  embodies  the  radical  readings 
of  an  ardent  young  spirit;  the  coupling  of  the  holy  name 
with  the  doctrine  so  unholy  to  many,  however,  once  more  at- 
tests what  we  must  henceforth  accept  as  unquestioned  fact, 
— the  sincerity  of  a  forceful  personality  bom  into  a  world 
tliat  he  is  intent  upon  bettering.  Out  of  such  a  purpose 
grew,  quite  naturally,  the  early  utilitarian  beliefs  as  to  the 
poet's  function.     When  the  Christ  of  the  poem  proclaims 

Crucificadme;  iy  bien?     lYo  hablo  al  presente? 
No:  yo  hablo  al  porvenir.  La  igualdad  sacra 
sera  el  ideal  de  la  futura  gente.  .  . 

he  speaks  through  the  writer's  mouth ;  nor  is  his  spirit  so  far 
removed  from  tliat  of  the  Redeemer. 

jOh,  la  igualdad!     iHermanos,  no  habeis  visto 

al  sol  vertiendo  rayos  sobre  todos? 

Asi  alumbra  tambicn  el  Dios  del  Cristo;  « 

por  eso  nivelados  en  grandeza, 


JOSE  SANTOS  CHOCANO  251 

tencis,  ante  esle  mundo,  igual  derecho 

(le  recibir  el  Sol  sobre  la  frente 

(]ue  (le  tcncr  a  Dios  bajo  del  peclio!   .  .  . 

Many  a  famous  poet  well  above  his  twentieth  year  has 
written  far  worse  poetry  than  young  Chocano  produced  in 
this  Sermon,  which  was  dedicated  to  Ruben  Dario. 

There  is  an  occasional  softer  note  in  the  collection,  such 
a-  rises  from  La  Alomlra  (The  Lark),  dedicated  to  Enrique 
(.I'lincz  Carillo;  it  reveals  the  poet  in  a  symbolj^Uc-mood 
tluit  was  later  developed  in  some  of  his  best  poetry,  and  has 
been  well  rendered  into  English  by  Miss  Alice  Stone  Black- 
well,  who  has  translated  a  large  number  of  Chocano's  poems 
into  our  tongue,  as  well  as  a  notable  series  from  his 
brotiier  poets: 

"0  Romeo,  go  not  yet  away!"  with  love 
Thus  Juliet  murmurs,  'mid  the  thinning  dark. 
And  adds  to  that  sweet  call  the  tender  words, 
"  Tis  not  the  lark!"' 

Lo,  I  have  visited  the  heavenly  nests. 
Struck  the  bright  harps  to  which  the  angels  hark. 
And  pierced  into  the  fair  dream's  horoscope — 
Tis  not  the  lark. 

I  face  to  face  have  seen  the  golden  star. 
The  prelude  sweet  I  note  by  note  could  mark; 
I  journeyed  through  the  heavens  inch  by  inch — 
'Tis  not  the  lark. 

The  sacred  chalice  I  have  quaffed,  and  shared 
The  Host,  that  wipes  away  earth's  care  and  cark; 
Beneath  its  golden  di|h  I  placed  my  soul — 
'Tis  not  the  lark. 


252       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

And  I  have  plucked  the  young  bird  from  the  egg, 
The  beauteous  almond  from  its  covering  dark, 
And  from  tlie  lukewarm  word  the  golden  thought — 
'Tis  not  the  lark. 

And  I  at  last  have  flung  free  words  abroad 
Above  the  crowds,  already  hoarse  with  song, 
That  go  forth  following  the  new  Ideals, 
The  virgin  Longings,  eager,  deep,  and  strong — 

With  all  the  flags  of  triumph  now  unfurled 
Of  Dawn  Eternal,  which  dispels  the  dark; 
Go,  Romeo,  go  forth;  there  still  is  time. 
It  is  the  lark! 

I  have  said  that  Chocano  displays  none  of  the  morbidity 
that  characterizes  so  many  of  the  modernists;  yet  in  his 
El  Primer  Adios  (First  Farewell)  he  speaks  of  Werther's 
a ilnient  coursing  through  his  veins;  if  it  really  did,  it  had 
little  ill  effect  upon  his  tropical  nature;  in  the  very  same 
poem,  indeed,  he  gives  ample  evidence  of  a  virility  and  an 
aggressiveness  sadly  lacked  by  Goethe's  romantic  hero. 
The  century  appears  in  the  light  of  a  battle  and  the  poet 
hastens  with  prophetic  fervor  to  the  strife  intoning  "the 
Marseillaise  of  a  yokeless  love."  There  is  a  humorous 
side  to  this  long  farewell  of  some  fifty-four  eight-lined 
stanzas;  just  before  setting  out,  the  author  was  clapped  into 
prison.  Little  daunted,  however,  he  wrote  verses  of  more 
than  passing  significance  during  his  incarceration,  and  m 
one  of  the  sonnets  from  En  La  Mazmorra  (the  underground 
dungeon  of  Casamatas,  Callao)  he  sings  his  defiance  in  a 
couple  of  metaphors  that  sum  up,  with  that  peculiar  powep 
Chocano  wields  over  rhetorical  fijures,  his  entire  conception 


]OSt  SANTOS  CHOCANO  253 

(if  [he  poet  as  tlie  enemy  of  the  tyrant;  as  long  as  there 
It  mains  a  tyrant  on  the  tlirone  the  poet  will  continue  to 
.-iiig  his  ire;  he  will  sink  his  enemies  into  the  dungeon  of 
hi-  verses,  and  his  lyre  shall  form  their  prison  bars! 

rhe  Choeano  of  the  I ra^^^utasAs^aAoicTcnUd],  gushing, 
ili'orclered,  yet  religiously  ideal  im..tgination,  already  giv- 
ing ample  evidenee  of  his  flashing  metaphors  and  dazzling 
jg^iigiis;  beside  the  influence  of  tlic  ubiquitous  Hugo,  it  is 
instructive  to  point  out  that  of  Diaz  Miron;  read  the  Mex- 
ican's A  Gloria,  for  example,  and  you  will  discover  not  only 
much  of  the  Peruvian's  indignation  and  arrogance,  but  not 
a  little  of  his  epigrammatic,  arrow-like  style.  So  libertar- 
ian a  critic  as  Manuel  Gonzalez  Prada  sees  in  such  a  poem 
as  Juicio  Final,  a  genuine  summary  of  Peruvian  social  and 
political  life;  this  is  important,  for  one  of  Chocano's  early 
attributes  was  his  attempt  to  poetize  everything  he  read  upoM 
art,  science  and  sociology;  he  lived  up  truly  to  his  concept 
tion  of  the  poet  as  a  social  redeemer.  The  epic  spirit  '\\ 
already  evidenced  by  the  long-winded  farewell;  the  ten- 
derer strain  is  represented  by  the  beautiful  poem  of  the 
lark;  there  is  a  glimpse  of  love,  which  enters  more  fully, 
and  more  naturally,  in  the  following  collection.  \      i^ 

Iras  Santas  had  been  printed  in  red  ir^'^^n  La  Aldea  \  t^ 
(In  The  Village)  was  printed  in  blue.  The  two  colors 
symbolize  most  adequately  the  dominating  spirits  of  the 
respective  collections;  En  La  Aldea,  moreover,  is  furnished 
with  a  blue  prelude.  It  is  important  to  recall  that  these 
poems  were  written  at  about  the  same  time  as  the  more  fiery 
ones;  we  thus  have  a  further  evidence  of  the  poet's  dual- 
'ity.  "In  Iras  Santas,"  says  Gonzalez  Prada  quite  vividly, 
"Choeano  seizes  poetry  by  the  hair  and  gives  it  a  rude  tug"; 


254       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

the  second  collection  takes  us  from  prison  walls  and  pas- ; 
sionate  harangue  to  the  softer  moods  of  nature  and  of  man.  \ 
The  collection  is  subtitled  Poesias  Americanas  and  is  a  dis- 
tinct precursor,  in  spirit,  of  Alma  America;  its  blue  tint, 
too,  is  not  unmarred  here  and  there  by  what  Gonzales  Prada 
calls  a  greyish  hue.  The  cerulean  prelude  would  serve  to 
indicate  also  that  young  Chocano  knew  tyrants  of  a  non- 
political  nature,  who  wore  petticoats.  For  at  the  conclu- 
sion he  addresses  a  maiden  with  the  remark  that  she  will 
note  from  his  verses,  filled  with  bitterness  as  they  are,  the 
enduring  memory  of  his  love  for  her.  "Now  gentle,  now 
violent  my  verses  will  sound  to  your  ears;  for  within  them 
the  vulture  and  the  dove  possess  the  same  nest!"  (The  ever- 
present  duality,  you  will  notice.)  And  then,  to  show  that 
6ur  gallant  is  facile  with  the  typically  Spanish  languishing 
simile: 

Lee  mis  pobres  versos,  ya  que  el  yugo 

se  constante  llevar  de  tus  amores; 

devoralos  y  exprimeles  el  jugo; 

porque  acaso  el  mayor  de  mis  placeres 

esta  en  verlos  morir  como  esas  flores 

que  deshojan,  jugando,  las  mujeres.  .  .  . 

The  comparison  of  his  poems  to  the  flowers  that  women  pul 
apart  as  they  play  with  them  is  worthy  of  an  anthology. 

We  must  not  imagine  that  because  the  poems  are  in 
spired  by  country  life,  they  are  utterly  devoid  of  the  poet' 
rebellious  spirt.  For  the  village  possesses  former  battle 
fields  as  well  as  cemeteries,  and  the  singer  muses  ove 
them,  beholding  a  day  when  the  tool  of  the  laborer  tha 
brings  life  will  replace  the  instrument  of  the  warrior  thd 
brought  death.     The  sight  of  the  cemetery  itself  is  not  . 


JOSE  SANTOS  CHOCANO  255 

source  of  inelanclioly  musings,  but  ralhcr  a  mystic  conso- 
lation, rare  in  youth.  "How  green  the  field  seems, 
stretciied  out  there  in  the  distance  .  .  .  !  And  why  does  it 
wear  the  color  of  hope?"  The  sight  of  the  mills  recalls 
the  great  Manchegan  and  inspires  a  symbolic  sonnet. 
Note,  in  passing,  how  rich  in  sonnets  is  Chocano;  Spanish- 
American  modernists  see  little  anachronistic  in  the  use  of 
the  lorm  that  our  own  young  spirits  are  fast  abandoning. 

THE  WIND  MILLS 

Yonder,  borne  onward  by  the  strong  wind's  breath. 

The  village  windmills'  mocking  sails  are  seen, 

Cir(  ling  with  reckless  haste  and  ardor  keen, 

W  ith  panting  fury  and  impelling  faith. 

A  music  hovers  o'er  the  sails,  wind-caught; 

They  raise  towards  heaven  the  song  divine  and  free 

Of  man  triumphant  over  Destiny, 

The  wild  wind  harnessed  by  our  human  Thought. 

\^Tien  evening  shades  descend  upon  the  earth. 
And  yonder  there  I  see  the  windmills  stand, 
Kissed  vainly  by  die  great  sun's  glowing  light. 
Then  from  their  sails  I  look  to  see  come  forth, 
Upon  his  meagre  steed,  with  lance  in  hand, 
A  spiritual  type,  La  Mancha's  knight! 

For  some  reason  or  other  it  has  pleased  the  poet,  in  his 
.later  days,  to  insist  upon  his  objectivity;  from  one  who  has 
been  so  sensible  in  the  matter  of  schools  and  terminology 
>dbe  insistence  comes  with  a  little  unpleasantness.  Cho- 
cano's  conception  of  objectivity  is  quite  his  own;  does  he 
>mean  that  he  is  not  subjective?  That  is  hard  to  believe. 
Does  he  mean  that  he  is,  in  a  narrow  sense,  Paniassian? 


256       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

That  is  equally  hard  to  understand.  No  doubt  the  ad- 
vancing years,  as  we  shall  see,  have  chastened  his  spirit 
and  refined  his  art,  but  they  have  not  effaced  his  person- 
^lity,  his  subjectivity,  his  peculiarly  dualistic  view  of  man 
and  the  universe.  In  some  of  the  poems  of  trfLa  Aldea, 
indeed,  he  hits  upon  _a.-Symbolistic  pantheisr^  that  he  has 
never  completely  outgrown.  Thus  his  Arholes  Viejos  looks 
upon  the  tree  as  possibly  furnishing  not  only  the  cross  for 
a  Christ,  but  the  branch  upon  which  to  hang  a  Judas. 

OLD  TREES 

Even  the  old  tree,  fallen  by  the  road, 
That  has  no  leaves,  no  fruit,  no  blossorrs  gay, 
Can  give  a  seat  where  shepherds  may  repose, 
A  staff  to  aid  the  pilgrim  on  his  way. 

So  the  old  man,  experienced  and  wise. 
Gives  maxims  tliat  ward  off  mishap  and  pain. 
He,  without  perfume,  sap,  or  colors  bright, 
Fulfills  his  law,  and  does  not  live  in  vain. 

0  workman,  listen  and  give  heed  to  me! 
Thou  shouldst  oppose  as  steadfastly  as  I 
Cutting  off  boughs,  though  they  be  bare  of  grace; 
Because  there  may  come  forth  from  some  old  tree 
Perchance  the  cross  on  which  a  Christ  shall  die. 
Perchance  the  gallows  for  a  Judas  base. 

Yet  does  tlie  village  bring  him  calm?  No.  He  is  th( 
eternal  fighter.  He  sees  the  beauty  of  love,  of  nature,  o. 
life,  but  there  is  something  missing  in  that  beauty  if  he  i: 
not  engaged  in  the  struggle  for  the  amelioration  of  man 
kind's  lot.  He  thinks  of  death  (Morir),  but  it  is  not  i 
death  such  as  Gutierrez  Ncijera  and  Casal  longed  for. 


'^  JOS£  SANTOS  CIIOCANO  257 

I  would  wage  battle  with  all  my  soul, 
With  all   my  hKxxl,  with  every   nerve! 

'  He  woiiltl  clio  at  llu*  iiciyjit  ol  tlic  strife,  "vvilh  his  lyre  in 
his  haiuls.  He  knows,  however,  that  while  all  may  not  be 
right  with  the  world,  God's  in  His  heaven  and  "all  pro- 
gresses toward  the  good."     And  just  as  all  doubters  have 

'  their  motnents  of  faith,  or  an  intense  desire  for  it,  so  to  this 
optimist  eome  his  passing  moments  of  doubt.  In  Ante  El 
Abismo  he  voices  tlic  eternal  query  and  receives  the  eternal 
reply:  silence. 

The  poet  of  En  La  Aldea,  far  more  than  he  of  the  sacred 
wrath,  reveals  the  singer  of  Alma  America;  the  herald  of 
its  fauna  and  itJ  flora,  the  idyllic  painter  of  its  birds  and 
beasts,  its  landscapes  and  traditions;  the  familiar  spirit  of 
its  ambient.  Chocano's  pantheism  endows  his  beloved 
mountains  not  only  with  life,  but  wnth  thought;  it  is  as 
much  nature  in  contemplation  of  man  as  Gonzalez  Mar- 
tinez's man  in  contemplation  of  nature. 

Azahares  (Orange  Blossoms,  1896)  is  a  lyric  collection 
in  which  the  lover  pays  tribute  to  his  beloved;  woman  is  at 
once  his  muse  and  his  song;  her  very  glance  is  a  Fiat  Lux! 
The  poet  {Ab  Eterno)  reveals  himself  as  a  believer  in  the 
life  eternal  for 

Traemos  desde  otros  mundos, 
cual  recuerdos  de  otros  dias, 
inefables  simpatias, 
resentimientos  profundos. 
iLos  oleajes  iracundos 
chocan  solo  para  chocar? 
;  Amar  es  tan  solo  amar? 
;  Donde  el  punto  de  partida 


258      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE ^^^ 

esta  para  nuestra  vida: 
en  la  playa  6  en  la  mar? 

Is  not  this  the  same  as  he  who  later  feels  himself  of  the  past, 
present  and  future,  all  in  one? 

Note  how  the  grandiose  attitude  (which  becomes  at  times 
grandiloquent  in  the  best  sense  of  the  word  and  more  often, 
in  the  early  poems,  rhymed  bombast)  does  not  abandon  him 
even  in  the  moods  of  love.  When  he  is  thrust  from  the 
heaven  of  his  Beatrice's  eyes  he  falls  like  Lucifer  himself, 
and  dreams  in  hell  of  redemption  through  his  sweetheart's 
protecting  hand. 

debe  de  ser  hermoso  y  eloquente, 
ver  entrar  a  los  cielos  nuevamente 
a  Satan  redimido  y  perdonado.        (Regreso) 

When  she  weeps,  her  tears  are  pure  pearl;  when  he  weeps, 
he  weeps  oceans;  the  very  human  heart  possesses  the  form 
of  a  tear  (Rocio).  On  the  seventh  day  {El  Septimo  Dia) 
the  Lord  proclaims  "Let  there  be  Love!"  and  "there 
sounded  a  thunder  like  an  immense  kiss!"  .  .  .  "Let  there 
be  love!"  cried  the  Lord  again;  "but  let  it  be  worthy  of 
Me"  .  .  .  "And  woman  was  created!" 

Entonces  cante  amor.     Quite  los  velos  5 

de  encima  de  los  genesis  profundos; 
y  abri  mi  libro,  como  Dios  sus  celos; 
y  vi  mis  versos,  como  Dios  sus  mundos.  .  . 

The  youth  who  would  placidly  liken  himself  to  Christ  would 
not  hesitate  to  carry  the  similarity  to  the  Lord  himself? 
but  when  he  opens  his  book,  "as  God  his  heavens,"  and 


JOSE  SANTOS  CHOCANO  259 

'  beholds  his  verses,  "as  God  his  worlds,"  the  celestial  im- 
j  agery  has  gone  too  far!  . 

The  early  collections  hy  Chocano,  then,  reveal  all  the  / 
attributes  that  distinj:^uish  liis  later  work:  an  intense  diial- 
;  ism  of  outlook,  a  radical  conception  of  society,  a  gift  for 
illuminating  figures,  a  soft  touch  that  represents  the  giant 
in  repose,  a  communion  with  nature  tliat  endows  it  with  his 
ovni  personality,  a  deep  feeling  for  the  indigenous  flowers, 
birds,  beasts  and  trees,  a  religious  spirit,  a  tendency  to  con- 
ceive things  upon  a  grandiose  scale  and  express  them  in  a 
bold  maimer  commensurate  with  the  conception.     There  is 
j  as  yet  little  sense  of  selection,  altliough  here  and  there  ap- 
I  pears  a  poem  that  proclaims  the  mature  singer.     There  is 
'  as  yet  little  technical  innovation,  although  we  find  a  cer- 
,  tain  mnsterv  of  conventional  forms  that  renders  the  verse 
pliant  to  his  thoughts.     Yet  the  future   Chocano   is  dis- 
,  tinctly,  if  embn^onically,  present.     The  labors  that  follow 
immediately   upon   those   that  we  have   scanned,   leading 
to  Alma  America,  are  in  a  sense  intermediary;  there  is  an 
advance  in  technique  and  thought,  a  more  ample  sweep, 
a  firmer  grasp.     Maturity  is  rapid  in  the  tropics,  and  Cho- 
i  cano  is  a  tropical  spirit. 

I      2.  La  Epopeya  del  Morro,  El  Canto  del  Siglo,  Selva 
Virgen,  El  Derrumbe. 

In  rapid  succession,  perhaps  spurred  on  by  the  success 
of  The  Epic  of  the  Morro,  Chocano  wrote  the  pneumatic 
Song  of  the  Century,  a  finisecular  poem,  issued  the  collec- 
tion Virgin  Forest  and  at  first  fragmentarily,  tlie  romantic- 
symbolic  verse  narrative.  The  Landslide  or  The  Collapse. 


260      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

La  Epopeya  del  Morro  (1899)  celebrates,  in  quasi- 
epic  style,  the  intense  patriotism  and  heroism  of  the  Peru- 
vians as  brought  out  by  the  war  with  Chile,  which  lasted 
from  1879  to  1883.  Written  when  Chocano  was  but 
twenty  years  of  age,  it  was  awarded  a  prize  by  the  Na- 
tional Congress  of  Peru;  in  his  reprinting  of  it  (in  Fiat 
Lux!,  which  is  in  part  an  anthology  of  all  his  poetic  works 
previous  to  Alma  America)  he  tells  us  that  he  considers 
it  the  highest  exponent  of  his  first  artistic  stage.  And 
without  going  into  the  raptures  that  Gonzalez-Bianco  feels 
for  the  youthful  production,  it  is  easy  to  consider  it  a 
remarkable  work  of  combined  patriotism  and  poesy.  It 
would  seem,  too,  that  the  youthful  revolutionist  was  not 
so  communistic  in  his  fervors  as  to  have  lost  all  sense 
of  nationality. 

The  Epopeya^  in  addition  to  the  introduction  and  the 

1 1  refer  here  to  the  revised  form  of  the  Epopeya  as  it  appears  in  Fiat 
Lux!  (1908).  The  earlier  form  is  appreciably  longer,  consisting  of  ten 
parts  in  addition  to  the  prologue.  The  revision  has  affected  mainly  the 
beginning.  Thus,  in  the  original  first  canto  (called  El  Canto  de  Los 
Heroes)  there  is  an  irrelevant  question  whether  progress  is  real  or  illu- 
sionary,  and  the  firm  belief  that  the  memory  of  heroes  will  outlive  that  of 
all  other  human  creatures. 

En  medio  de  la  noche,  en  que  camina 
el  mundo,  hacia  la  aurora  del  mafiana, 
cada  heroe,  coronando  cada  ruina, 
es  como  cada  antorcha  que  iluraina 
las  noches   de   Neron.     i  Antorcha   humana: 
llamarada  infernal,  lumbre  divina!   .  .  . 

There  is  likewise  a  strong  note  of  that  internationalism  whose  more  pro- 
nounced characteristics  seem  to  have  been  abandoned  later  by  the  poet. 
Thus,  in  the  early  version,  the  author  sings  the  internation  before  ap- 
proaching the  glorification  of  his  nation's  heroes.  "Soon,  soon,  tomorrow, 
the  idea  of  a  fatherland  that  shall  be  the  eternal  union  of  the  human  spe- 
cies, will  shine  from  the  summits  upon  the  sad  and  abject  faces  of  the  t 
fettered  multitudes.  The  old  fatherland  will  change  name;  and  the  new 
name  dreamed  of  in  the  mind  will  triumph  at  last  in  a  fierce  battle.  .  .  . 


,  JOSE  SANTOS  CHOCANO  261 

epilogue,  consists  in  its  revised  form,  of  six  parts:  In  Wait- 
iiif);,  tlie  Last  Carlridi^o,  Before  Tlic  Assault,  The  Assault, 
The  Death  of  the  Hero,  The  End  of  tlie  Assault.  The  epi- 
ode  throbs  with  names  that  rouse  a  fierce  pride  in  the 
heart  of  Peruvians,  and  the  writer  occasionally  indicates 
the  historical  accuracy  of  the  high  deeds  he  eelcijrales. 
Uppermost  in  Chocano's  mind  seems  to  have  been  tlie  tak- 
ing of  the  port  of  Arica,  which  occurred  on  June  7,  1880, 
— a  sad  date  for  Peru. 

The  piece  is  characteristic  of  the  autlior,  although  it 
displays  a  surer  hand  and  a  firmer  grasp  upon  technical 
detail  than  do  the  earlier  poems.  It  mingles  classical 
with  biblical  allusion  and  at  times  falls  into  an  exaggerated 
style  that  has  never  completely  abandoned  the  Peruvian 
poet.  Yet  its  beauties  far  outweigh  any  occasional  lapses. 
Did  not  even  the  good  Homer  nod? 

The  Hero,  with  his  waning  band  of  men,  in  a  vain  wait 
for  reinforcements,  is  sadly  disillusioned  when  he  seems 

Oh.  I'niversal  Fatherland!  Fatherland  of  man,  an  entire  century,  dying, 
salutes  thee!"     But  since  the  song  is  of  a  national  hero,  he  ends  the  canto 

iHoy  canta  al  heroe  de  la  patria  vieja 
y  al  de  la  Patria  Universal  raanana! 

Sing,  muse,  today,  the  hero  of  the  old  fatherland, 
and  him  of  the  Universal  Patria  tomorrow! 

Chocano's  rather  erratic  method  of  publication,  in  which  it  is  very  diffi- 
cult to  follow  his  artistic  progress,  is  perfectly  justifiable  in  the  case  of 
the  man  desirous  of  giving  only  his  best  to  the  public,  but  it  is  hard  on 
the  critic  who  is  interested  in  the  creator's  development.  Nor  is  it 
quite  right  to  present  the  Epopeya  as  it  appears  in  Fiat  Lux!  (where  it  is 
atwut  half  the  size  of  the  original  form)  without  a  note  calling  attention 
to  the  changes;  Qiocano  (in  Fiat  Lux!)  says  that  he  regards  the  Epopeya 
as  the  highest  point  in  his  early  poetry;  very  well,  but  the  Epopeya  as  it 
appears  there  is  not  the  original  document,  and  hence  misleads  the  reader 
and  student  as  to  just  what  degree  of  skill  the  poet  had  attained  at  the  time 
the  Epopeya  was  awarded  national  distinction. 


262      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

to  discern  the  long  awaited  succor  arrive.  The  newcomers 
are  not  the  longed  for  aid;  they  represent  an  added  men- 
ace from  the  enemy.  Soon  a  messenger  is  despatched 
from  the  hostile  lines,  bearing  the  news  that  the  small 
force  may  escape  with  their  lives  if  they  will  surrender 
in  the  face  of  sure  defeat.  The  Hero's  response  is  im- 
mediate; they  will  fight  to  the  last  cartridge;  but  before 
giving  that  as  a  definite  reply  he  leads  the  messenger 
to  the  patriot  chiefs  and  lets  him  hear  the  decision  corro- 
borated by  the  full  council.  The  messenger  departs  and 
soon  the  attack  begins.  Bravely  the  Peruvians  wage  com- 
bat, and  as  vainly,  against  superior  forces.  A  woman  is 
found  fighting  at  her  man's  side,  and  in  her  death  she 
becomes,  for  the  poet,  the  symbol  of  tlie  slain  Patria. 
The  Hero  himself  is  at  last  slain,  and  the  first  night  of 
captivity  falls  over  the  fortress.  Thus  was  begun  a  war 
which  represents  a  decisive  and  disastrous  moment  in 
Peruvian  history,  having  set  her  back  for  many  a  year. 

The  poem  literally  flames  with  ardor;  even  the  meta- 
phors are  drawn  from  the  imagery  of  fire;  time  and  again 
we  come  upon  tlie  felicitous  phrases  and  figures  of  which 
Chocano  alone,  with  all  his  tendency  to  overdo  such  things, 
possesses  the  secret. 

Thus,  in  the  first  canto,  if  we  may  call  it  such,  the  pa- 
triots discover  that  the  enemy  is  five  times  as  great  as  was 
believed;  whereupon  each  Peruvian  grows  five  times  him- 
self in  bravery. 

Cinco  veces  mayor  el  acampado 
enemigo  es  al  fin  .  .  .  Y  cinco  veces 
crece  dentro  de  si  cada  soldado.  , 

Thus  the  woman  discovered  fighting  in  the  Peruvian 


JOSE  SANTOS  CHOCANO  263 

ranks  becomes  an  eternal  symbol  of  tlie  unfortunate  fath- 
rrland. 

;  Y  esa  niujer,  de  came  desgarrada 

por  infame  puiial,  con  la  mirada 

de  un  Sol  dc  gloria  en  la  pupila  incierta; 

esa  sobre  el  caiion  sacrificada, 

esa  .  .  .  cs  la  iniacen  dc  la  Patria  mucrta! 

And  wbat  a  splendid  climax  is  tliat  of  ibe  Epilogue,  in 
which  the  nation  is  represented  as  making  a  pyre  of  the 
branches  lopped  from  its  tree  of  life,  from  which,  when 
the  flames  have  died,  will  rise  the  flag  of  the  nation  float- 
ing over  the  ruins  "like  a  flame  become  a  banner!" 


*& 


i  y  el  patrio  pabellon  tenido  en  rojo, 
cuando  ?e  apaaue  la  gloriosa  hoguera, 
flotera  sobre  el  ultimo  despojo 
como  una  llamarada  hecha  bandera! 

A  single  instance  may  suffice  to  illustrate  the  tendency 
to  exaggerated  statement.  Chocano  is  speaking  of  his 
hero,  whom  he  makes  out  as  the  synthesis  of  no  less  than 
lliree  Homeric  heroes: 

porque  el  gran  Bolognesi  era  el  resumen 
de  Agamenon,  de  Nestor  y  de  Aquiles: 
asi  encarnaba  el  Heroe  americano 
la  majestad  de  Agamenon  de  Atreo 
la  experiencia  de  Nestor  el  anciano 
y  el  arrojo  del  hijo  de  Peleo. 

La  Epopeya  del  Morro,  says  Gonzalez-Bianco,  "is  an 
epic  song  in  the  ancient  manner,  as  resonant  and  virile  as 
the  stamping  hoofs  of  a  war  horse.     Chorano's  ^^tro[)hes 


264       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

resound  like  lashes  and  cleave  the  air  like  arrows."  Per- 
haps the  Spanish  critic,  who  is  notable  for  his  enthusiasm 
over  things  Spanish-American,  has  been  infected  by  a  little 
of  Chocano's  expansive  spirit;  yet  his  evaluation  is  indic- 
ative of  the  poem's  high  worth.  The  action  moves  sw^iftly, 
the  language  is  luminous  with  imagery  and  occasional 
grandiloquence.  La  Epopeya  del  Morro  went  far  to  make 
Chocano  the  national  poet  of  Peru, — the  first  step  to  his 
poetic  conquest  of  the  entire  continent. 

When  we  come  to  the  Song  of  the  Century  (1900),  how- 
ever, we  feel  at  once  that  we  are  in  a  different  atmosphere, 
— a  stifling  ambient  in  which  Pegasus  kicks  up  so  much  dust 
that  it  is  impossible  to  catch  sight  of  him.  The  steed  of 
poesy,  possessing  hoofs  as  well  as  wings,  here  elects  to 
abandon  his  pinions  and  stick  close  to  the  earth;  at  times, 
being  after  all  a  steed,  he  runs  at  a  mad  gallop,  but  always 
he  holds  to  the  ground, — his  wings  lie  idle. 

Chocano's  project  in  this  now  disowned  Canto  del  Siglo, 
was  nothing  less  than  to  epicize  the  century.  The  muse,  as 
he  tells  us  in  his  prologue,  comes  down  from  high  heaven 
to  sing  in  the  dust  of  tlie  earth  all  that  it  sees  worthy  of 
song.  And  she  begins  with  Napoleon,  "the  great  man  of 
the  century,"  even  as  Chocano  himself  begins  with  the  in- 
evitable biblical  reminiscence: 

At  the  beginning  of  the  century  was  darkness. 

Napoleon  it  was  who  rose  from  the  depths  to  master  the 
world.     His  labors  were  quite  as  great  as  the  Lord's,  "for 
God  made  his  worlds  out  of  chaos  and  out  of  the  nothing 
you  made  yourself.  .  .   ."     Napoleon  is  thus  greater  than* 
the  Alexanders  and  the  Caesars,  who  shone  with  the  re- 


JOSE!  SANTOS  CHOCANO  265 

fleeted  light  of  inherited  glory  and  stimulus.  Yet  young 
(  hocaiK)  knows  Napoleon's  faults  as  well  as  his  virtues, 
and  luis  expressed  the  dioughts  of  many  in  two  lines  that 
are  far  superior  to  most  in  tlie  exhausting  Canto. 

Poiiia  ser  la  Liberlad  lu  esposa; 
y  solo  llcgo  a  scr  tu  concubina. 

Liberty  might  have  been  your  wife; 
she  became  only  your  mistress. 

!•  Is  there  not  a  deal  of  history  compressed  into  those  two 
lines? 

But  let  us  hasten  through  the  "argument"  of  the  fmisecu- 
lar  epic  before  pausing  for  such  analysis  as  helps  us  to 
understand  the  mature  artist. 

Part  I:  Napoleon's  career  leads  him  from  glory  to  ulti- 
mate failure;  Part  II:  the  independence  of  Spanish  Amer- 
ica and  the  glorious  names  to  which  it  gave  birth;  the  for- 
mer colonies  express  their  spiritual  allegiance  to  the  mother 
nation;  Part  III:  the  triumph  of  the  sciences,  which  con- 
stitutes the  greatest  glory  of  the  century.  Man  launches 
forth  upon  the  quest  of  Truth,  tlirough  the  idealism  of 
Hegel  and  Krause,  the  positivism  of  Comte,  the  evolution- 
ary doctrine  of  Darwin,  the  new  discoveries  of  psychophy- 
siology,  die  contributions  of  Pasteur,  and  so  on;  chemistry 
makes  new  conquests;  Fulton  invents  the  steamboat,  Steph- 
enson perfects  the  locomotive,  Lesseps  initiates  the  era  of 
canals;  tlie  wireless  telegraph  astounds  human  thought; 
Edison  perpetuates  the  human  voice  in  the  phonograph; 
X-rays,  magnetism,  the  superman  of  science.  (Our  young- 
ster has  been  reading  heavily,  it  seemeth,  and  fain  would 


266       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

rhyme  all  his  data!) ;  Part  IV:  The  Final  Vision;  the  great 
poet  of  the  century,  Victor  Hugo;  the  great  painter,  Dela- 
croix; the  great  sculptor,  Rodin;  the  great  composer,  Wag- 
ner; the  wonders  of  architecture,  as  represented  in  the 
Milan  Cathedral,  the  Brooklyn  Bridge,  the  Eiffel  tower; 
the  future  path,  universal  peace.  Socialism,  Intellectuality, 
Mothers  and  Children,  Science  and  Love. 

One  could  easily  imagine  that  Chocano  had  procured  a 
set  of  the  numerous  sociological  works  published  in  Span- 
ish versions  by  the  radical  firm  over  which  Blasco  Ibanez 
presides,  and  for  which  the  author  of  The  Four  Horsemen  of 
the  Apocalypse  himself  furnished  so  many  of  the  transla- 
tions, and  had  made  up  his  mind  to  transform  the  prose  of 
it  all  into  poetic  notes.  As  a  whole,  the  Canto  del  Siglo 
possesses  little,  if  any,  artistic  interest.  It  demonstrates 
an  eager  mind,  a  progressive  spirit,  a  broad  and  all-em- 
bracing conception  of  humanity,  a  youthful  fervor  that 
all  too  frequently  leaves  little  trace  in  the  adult.  It  at- 
tests the  author's  cosmic  interests;  his  identification  of  him- 
self with  all  mankind;  his  eagerness  to  absorb  a  multitude 
of  influences;  an  eclectic  mind.  Only  in  fragments,  and 
these  but  few  in  number,  is  it  of  significance  as  anything 
like  poetry.  One  would  prefer  to  believe  that  it  had  been 
written  before  La  Epopeya  del  Morro,  which  is  so  far 
superior  in  inspiration  and  expression. 

As  may  be  imagined  from  a  knowledge  of  the  poet's 
later  work,  it  is  the  second  part, — that  dealing  with  Amer- 
ica's achievement  of  independence, — that  is  most  striking 
to  the  reader  of  today.  It  is  interesting  to  note  how  thus 
early  Chocano  forecasted  the  change  of  attitude  toward 
the  mother  country  which  was  to  be  definitely  indicated 


JOSE  SANTOS  CHOCANO  267 

as  one  ol  lliL"  new  orientations  of  tlie  modernist  movement 
in  1906,  wlien  Nervo  read  his  E pilhalamium  to  the  newly 
wed  Spani.Nh  monarch. 

Si  Amrrira  vencio,  fuc  su  victoria 
or^uUo  nuileriial  para  la  Espana: 
arbol  que  einpieza  a  dar  frutos  de  gloria 
se  los  dcbe  al  torrenle  que  lo  bafia. 

There  are  still  Spaniards  who  fmd  it  dilHcult  to  adopt 
Qiocano's  ratlier  in^^enuous  idea  that  the  victory  of  the 
colonists  over  the  mother  country  should  be  a  source  of 
niatemal  pride  to  Spain. 

Knowing  the  poet's  tendencies,  we  are  not  surprised  to 
iiiui  the  strength  of  Bolivar  exalted  above  tliat  of  Hercules: 

Como  en  el  mito  en  que  Hercules  membrudo, 
que  no  igualo  en  vigores  ni  en  deseo 
al  rebelde  Bolivar.  .  .  . 

nor  to  hear  the  name  of  the  great  Liberator  palpitate  like 
thunder  in  the  womb  of  Eternity.  (There  is  something  of 
Hugo  in  the  figure, — of  a  Hugo  that  we  admire  so  much 
in  our  early  days,  and  then  learn  to  forget  for  the  greater 
Hugo  of  tlie  cosmic  poems.) 

It  is  at  the  close  of  this  section  that  Chocano's  address 
to  the  mother  country  occurs.  The  last  four  lines  were 
later  employed  as  tlie  conclusion  of  the  Ofrenda  a  Espaha 
that  opens  Alma  America. 

0  ancestress  of  nations,  ancient  Spain! 
Yield  to  the  lovely  law  by  which  life  grows — 
^\hi^ll  makes  the  roses  break  forth  into  buds, 
And  makes  of  every  bud  another  rose! 


268       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

You  gave  example  to  America 
Of  pride  maternal,  yet  are  not  content 
Because  you  have  passed  on  your  courage  high 
To  all  the  nations  of  a  continent. 
Admire  the  great  exploits  of  your  sons! 
To  wish  to  punish  them  in  wrath  would  be 
To  Avish  to  tear  your  own  deep  entrails  out. 
Our  heroes,  fit  for  tales  of  chivalry 
Inherit  from  their  ancestors  their  blood; 
Within  their  veins  the  hot  life-currents  flow 
Of  all  your  visionary  Quixotes  bold 
And  all  your  champion  Cids  of  long  ago! 
0  noble  Spain,  receive  me  in  your  arms, 
And,  to  my  song,  renew  the  ties  of  old! 
When  a  gold  ring  is  broken  into  bits. 
Although  a  ring  no  more,  it  still  is  gold! 

For  the  rest,  let  us  content  ourselves  with  selecting  from 
the  remaining  sections  an  illuminating  line  here  and  there. 

Apostrophizing  Truth,  the  young  poet,  most  appropri- 
ately in  a  canto  that  treats  of  man's  scientific  search  for 
truth  in  the  nineteenth  century,  calls  Truth  "the  x  of  des- 
tiny," which  we  strive  to  discover  in  our  manipulations  of 
the  eternal  equation.  Hegel  becomes  a  Columbus-like 
dreamer  seeking  an  America  of  thought.  Nor  is  it  at  all 
a  bad  touch  when,  treating  of  the  Comtian  positivism,  the 
singer  declares  that  the  realists  have  made  of  matter  a 
fallen  god  sunk  lower  than  his  very  creatures.  Schopen- 
hauer looms  as 

an  Attila 
Who  flays  God  in  the  name  of  Nothingness! 

with  Nietzsche  following  close  upon  his  heels,  "as  if  he 
were  the  Quixote  of  evil."     And  note  this  peculiar  cosmic 


JOSI&  SANTOS  CHOCANO  269 

nolo, — one  thai  sounds,  now  nuifHciI,  now  triumphant,  from 
ahnost  everything  of  significance  that  Chocano  has  written: 

;  Ah !  i  Quicn  sabe  si  es  solo  un  organismo 
el  Universo,  inmovil  en  escencia, 
y  que,  aunque  de  apariencia  en  apariencia 
transforniamiose  va,  siempre  es  el  luismo, 
y  quien  sabe  si  Dios  es  su  conciencia? 

;  Cuanto  organismo  bulle  en  una  gota 
de  agua,  de  sangre,  de  sudor,  de  llanto! 
;  Cuanto  grandeza  flota 
en  una  pe<]uenez!     Oh  Vida,  cuanto 
se  niultiplica  tu  inmortal  reflejo 
que  en  cada  gota  de  agua  reverbera, 
conio  una  eucarlstia  del  espejo 
que  en  mil  pedazos  te  retrata  enteral 

jDentro  de  cada  vida  hay  tantas  vidas! 
iNi  quien  podria  refrenar  la  ola 
que  en  otras  nuevas  olas  se  convierte? 
Las  chispas  de  una  hoguera  desprendidas 
hogueras  pueden  ser:  cada  corola 
es  un  bosque  tal  vez;  y  de  esta  suerte, 
la  vida  universal  es  una  sola. 

This  pantheism,  which  looks  upon  us  all  as  atoms  of 
God's  consciousness,  is  a  fundamental  element  of  Cho- 
:ano's  outlook  upon  life.  He  feels  the  world  beyond  the 
ienses;  the  mystery  of  the  mystic  unknown;  the  prick  of 
loubt  for  a  moment  twinges  him  and  he  asks,  "Who  knows, 
it  times,  whether  diere  where  we  seek  most  we  find  noth- 
ing?" Yet  here,  as  everywhere,  he  is  elementally  opti- 
*nistic,  nor  is  it  that  melancholy  optimism  which  de  Icaza 
mentions  with  reference  to  the  poems  of  Gonzalez  Martinez. 


270      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

Out  of  the  turmoil  will  come  peace  and  order;  out  of  the 
classicism  that  is  Homer,  the  redeeming  Christianity  that 
is  Dante,  the  free  thought  that  is  Hugo,  will  emerge  a 
better  world.  From  his  tower  (but  Chocano's  is  not  an 
ivory  one,  and  often  a  red  flag  floats  from  the  top),  the 
poet  gazes  toward  the  future  and  beholds  a  harmonious  de- 
mocracy in  which  Love,  "the  Host  of  souls,"  will  rule  over 
all. 

El  Canto  del  Siglo  is  most  valuable  as  a  study  in  the 
growing  mentality  of  Chocano;  it  shows  that  from  the  very 
beginning,  whatever  poetic  form  his  studies  assumed,  he 
was  imbued  with  a  far  stronger  social  sense  than  Dario  or 
the  other  modernist  poets  of  the  day, — that  he  was  bound 
sooner  or  later  to  identify  himself  with  continental  aspira- 
tions,— that  not  all  the  scientific  lore  he  imbibed  could 
stifle,  though  it  tempered,  his  innate  poetic  gifts, — that  his 
conception  of  the  poet's  mission  was  still  a  strongly  utili- 
tarian one,  aiming  to  teach  the  multitudes  even  as  it  in- 
spired them.  As  a  successor  to  La  Epopeya  del  Mono  it 
represents  a  poetic  retrogression  but  a  mental  advance. 
The  national  poet  of  Peru  grooms  his  Pegasus  to  fly  over 
continents  and  worlds. 

Selva  Virgen  (1900)  is  composed  of  poems  written  be- 
tween 1892  and  the  year  of  publication.  It  illustrates  alJ 
the  phases  of  the  poet's  art  that  we  have  thus  far  witnessed 
and  contains  more  material  that  was  later  chosen  from  tha 
literary  past  which  tlie  author  rejected  than  any  of  tlit 
other  collections,  as  may  be  noted  from  a  comparison  oi 
Fiat  Lux!  with  tlie  youthful  poems.  Chocano's  virgin  for 
est  is  virgin  only  in  the  author's  personal  gift  of  being  abl! 
to  view  modernity  through  the  eyes  of  tlie  primitive;  thi 


JOS£  SANTOS  CHOCANO  271 

author  has  boon  called  an  eternal  child;  there  is  something 
ot  this  childishness  about  all  genius,  although  it  should 
not  be  ciled  to  excuse  llie  gross  exaggeration  into  which  tlie 
poet  is  liable  to  fall  at  times.  From  the  forest  issues  now 
a  plaintive  note  of  elegy,  now  Uie  timorous  voice  of  doubt; 
again  tlie  singer  of  love  fills  tlie  wood  with  his  pastoral 

I  grievances  or  woos  tlie  Byronic  muse  with  a  long  succession 
of  Dantesque  tercets;  there  are  neo-Hamlet  monologues, 
summonses  to  glorious  strife,  protests,  self-assertions,  in- 
vocations to  the  Future  Verse  (see  El  Verso  Futuro,  ad- 
dressed to  Leopoldo  Lugones  and  Ricardo  Jaimes  Freyre), 
Songs  to  Zola,  to  The  New  Dodecasyllable  (addressed  to 
Amado  Nerw)),  varied  sonnets  aplenty,  Echegarayan  dia- 
logues between  tombs,  album  verses,  quatrains  a  la  Wat- 
teau,  neo-Hellenic  evocations  as  well  as  neo-Roman,  and 

(  what  not  else.  In  the  collection  as  a  whole  is  discernible 
a  delightful  freedom  from  technical  fetters,  a  liberty  that 
roves  at  will  through  styles  and  subjects,  gathering  honey 
from  every  flower  in  the  forest. 

Chocano  the  youtliful  lover  is  tliere,  well  able  to  answer 

'  amorous  disdain  with  darts  of  poesy.  He  can  tell  his 
scornful  lady  that  though  her  eyes  be  heaven,  diat  heaven 

:  lacks  both  a  God  and  stars;  he  knows  how  to  pay  delicate 

,  compliments  in  most  approved  Castilian  style   {Ante  Un 

:  Estatua   Del   Amor)    and    to    lend    a  sting   to    farewells 

.  {Punto  Final). 

I  He  is,  despite  his  numerous  assertions  of  having  been 
born  out  of  his  true  age,  a  man  of  the  epoch,  responsive  to 

I  its  conflicting  currents,  even  though  he  does  not  allow  him- 

^  self  to  be  swept  along  hither  and  thither  by  them.  He,  too, 
laughs  before   llie  trembling   idol-worshipper   [Las   Voces 


272       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

de  La  Duda),  yet  recognizes  that  the  priest  must  always 
have  his  cult  and  the  warrior  his  motto. 

Yo,  si  duda  mi  siglo,  tamLien  dudo; 
yo,  si  niega  mi  siglo,  tambien  niego; 
pero  no  tenga  liberatad  en  vano: 
jsea  el  siglo  mi  ley,  no  mi  tirano! 

He  doubts  and  denies,  together  with  his  century,  but  the 
century  can  be  only  his  law  and  never  his  tyrant.  The  at- 
titude is  characteristic  of  tlie  poet;  somewhere  he  has  re- 
ferred to  himself  and  to  Dario  as  two  of  the  few  who  in 
diis  age  of  skepticism  dared  openly  to  profess  a  belief  in 
God.  Of  the  two,  he  is  perhaps  the  more  firm  as  well  as 
the  more  joyous  believer;  Dario's  doubt  is  more  deep; 
it  is  like  the  ground  bass  of  the  organ  over  which  the  player 
may  vary  his  harmonies  and  his  musical  textures,  yet 
ever  in  consonance  with  the  pedal  note ;  Chocano's  doubt  is 
exceptional, — the  occasional  dissonance  necessary  for  har- 
monic contrast.  He  may  be  moved,  at  moments,  to  pro- 
claim that  he  expects  nothing  either  of  the  world  or  of  God, 
— that  he  is  wear)"  of  struggles  and  would  gladly  plumb 
the  depths  of  the  open  abyss,  since  Life  is  the  road  to 
Death,  yet  he  soon  alters  his  attitude,  and  at  the  end  of  the 
selfsame  poem  is  ready  to  declare  that  it  is  stupid  for  the 
dog  of  blasphemy  to  bark  before  the  grave,  since  Death,  to 
man,  is  but  the  child's  embrace  widi  the  motlier.  Cho- 
cano's doubt  is  purely  intellectual;  Dario's  is  part  of  his 
very  emotional  fibre. 

Just  as  the  intellect  of  Chocano  refuses  to  subject  itseli 
to  the  tyranny  of  the  century  whose  law  it  accepts,  so  the 
poet  in  him,  for  all  his  passionate  love  of  tlie  crowd,  re- 
fuses to  be  encircled  by  the  multitude. 


JOSE  SANTOS  CIIOCANO  273 

Suya  sera  mi  VDluiilad  ciilcm, 
mi  razon,  mi  ideal,  mi  ley,  mi  luio; 
;  pcro  drjeme,  en  eamhio,  (juc  .siquiera 
puede  decir : —  ;  I\li  corazon  es  mio!   .  ,  . 

(Canto  de  Huelga) 

One  may  durll  in  his  ivory  tower, — if  he  must, — in  the 
niidsl  oi  tlir  crowd.  And  Chocaiio  proposes,  though  his 
will,  his  reason,  his  ideal,  his  law,  his  enthusiasm  all  he- 
long  to  die  people,  to  maintain  a  little  corner  of  his  heart 
as  his  very  own. 

From  such  as  this  poem  reveals,  we  are  naturally  to  ex- 
pect the  man  more  interested  in  the  idea  than  in  the  form. 
It  is  the  preponderance  of  the  idea  that  injures  so  much 
of  Chocano's  early  labors  as  poetry.  Without  being  dog- 
matic one  may  express  tlie  belief  that  the  best  art,  like  the 
best  body,  is  an  indissoluble  harmony  of  form  and  con- 
tent. The  phrase  is  so  trite,  but  how  difficult  its  realiza- 
tion! \'^'ith  Dario,  Chocano's  complementary  personality, 
one  may  note  the  reverse:  the  young  Nicaraguan  was  con- 
sciously preoccupied  w^ith  technique.  Yet  in  this  same 
Sella  J'irgen  we  come  upon  such  a  sterling  sonnet  as 
Arqueologia,  which  flashes  upon  us  with  all  the  bril- 
liancy that  strikes  the  eyes  of  the  discoverer  in  the  poem 
itself: 

ARCHEOLOGY 

Searching  'mid  Eastern  ruins,  groping  slow, 
When  some  explorer  in  our  modern  days 
His  hand  upon  a  hidden  treasure  lays — 
Gold  idols  heathens  worshipped  long  ago — 
Then  with  what  eager  interest  aglow 
The  spirit  of  the  Present  backward  strays 


274       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

To  that  far  age  when  priests  raised  hymns  of  praise 
To  monstrous  gods  deformed,  with  foreheads  low ! 

When  our  age  too  is  dead,  from  tomb  to  tomb 

Some  new  explorer,  groping  in  the  gloom, 

Will  search  for  what  the  ruins  may  afford. 

How  great  his  fear,  how  strange  his  thoughts  will  be 

When,  gleaming  'mid  the  shadows,  he  shall  see. 

Rarest,  most  precious  treasure  trove,  a  sword ! 

In  this  sonnet's  sweep  of  the  centuries  one  feels  some- 
thing of  the  similar,  if  superior,  vision  in  Shelley's  son- 
net, Ozymandias  of  Egypt.  It  is  a  good  example  of  that 
Parnassianism  which  Chocano  has  claimed  as  his  own. 

Chocano's  ever  present  dualism  is  delightfully  evident  in 
the  pair  of  poems  entitled,  respectively,  La  Vejez  Vir- 
giliana  and  La  Vejez  Anacreontica,  in  which  he  sings 
two  opposite  views  of  old  age.  The  English  reader  nat- 
urally thinks  of  Milton's  similar  antithetic  pair,  U Alle- 
gro and  //  Penseroso.  As  the  old  man  of  the  soil  ap- 
proaches death,  he  gazes  upon  the  land  and  says,  "You 
were  mine  yesterday  .  .  .  Today  I  shall  be  yours!"  No 
such  autumnal  calm  for  the  Anacreontic  spirit.  He  has 
wine,  even  though  Venus  has  deserted  him,  and  will  wait 
till  his  inanimate  form  falls  upon  the  broken  glass.  Some- 
times the  mingling  of  classic  atmosphere  and  modernity 
produces  a  strange  climax.  Thus  Nero,  whose  god  is  form, 
not  meaning,  who  knows  that  though  Venus  may  be  un- 
learned she  is  yet  fair,  who  cries  "Praised  be  evil,  if  evil 
be  beautiful!"  can  shout,  at  his  death,  "I'm  dying  .  .  . 
No,  I'm  not  dying:  I  am  reborn!" 

One  will  meet  with  disappointment,  however,  if  he  tries 
to  distil  unity  out  of  the  various  essences  from  this  virgin 


JOSE  SANTOS  CHOCANO  275 

forest;  it  is  classic  and  romantic,  iilcalistic  and  material, 
impassioned  and  impassive, — all  at  the  will  ol  the  po«*t. 
He  writes,  not  to  provide  texts  lor  dissection,  l)ut  Irom  an 
inner  necessity.  He  is  all  men,  because  he  is  himself. 
That  is  the  refreshing  thing,  even  amid  his  most  extrava- 
gant lines  and  his  most  violent  metaphors.  And,  as  his 
later  attitude  has  shown,  he  who  writes  in  haste  may  re- 
vise at  leisure. 

El  Derriimbe  '~  exhibits  the  characteristic  mingling  of 
;  biblical  and  classical  allusions,  violent  figures  of  speech 
and  other  well  known  traits  of  the  early  Chocano.  As  a 
whole  it  is  a  florid,  rather  prolix  composition,  not  without 
spots  of  beauty  and  power,  yet  entangled  in  its  own  tropi- 
cal luxuriance,  like  the  fabulous  forests  of  the  Ajnazon. 
It  tells  the  tale  of  a  savage  who  is  led  to  civilization  by  a 
Christian  missionary;  the  primitive  man  comes  upon  the 
white  daughter  of  a  colonist  and  is  smitten  with  desire  for 
her;  she,  however,  is  plighted  to  another,  absent  and  ob- 
jected to  by  her  father.  In  a  symbolic  dream  he  speaks 
to  her.  "Seek  not  nobility  in  origins,"  he  urges,  talking 
strangely  like  the  idealist  Chocano;  "seek  it  in  the  aims  of 
life."  His  love  is  vain,  however,  and  he  flees  the  civiliza- 
tion which  has  only  taught  him  to  yearn  for  that  which  may 
never  be  his. 

We  are  impressed  with  a  sense  of  the  Indian's  idealism, 
yet  also  witli  the  feeling  that  conquest  was  necessary  for 
the  sake  of  progress.     The  poem,  a  symbol  as  an  entirety, 

2  I  use,  in  this  case,  the  original  form  of  FA  Derrumhe;  under  the  title 
El  Derrumbamientn  it  appears,  shortened  by  almost  a  third,  in  Alma  Amrr- 
ica.     As  with  La  Epopeya  del  Morro  in  Fiat  Lux!,  there  is  nothing  to  indi- 
1*  cate  that  it  is  the  revision  of  an  earlier  work. 


276       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

is  likewise  set  with  several  passages  of  intense  symbolic 
beauty. 

The  opening  {El  Salmo  de  las  Cumbres)  is  an  appealing 
evocation  of  the  majestic  solitude  of  the  mountains  and  at 
once  provides  the  setting,  both  material  and  spiritual,  so  to 
speak. 

i  Oh  murmullos  del  bosque!  j  oh  voz  sagrada 
de  la  Naturaleza!  j  oh,  queja  honda 
de  fiera  agonizante!  No,  no  hay  nada 
que  ensanche  mas  el  corazon  humano 
que,  cuando  vibra,  el  arpa  de  la  fronda 
templada  al  diapason  del  oceano. 

Quien  descubre  una  voz  que  lo  enamora; 
Quien,  una  voz  que  la  recuerda  un  canto; 
quien,  una  que  lo  arrulla  6  que  implora; 
quien,  que  nunca  oro  a  Dios,  oyendo  tanto 
rumor  solemne,  se  arrodilla  ,  .  .  ;y  ora! 

This  same  religious  atmosphere  of  the  forest  rises  from 
the  opening  of  the  second  part  {La  Oracion  de  las  Selvas). 
With  this  poem  may  be  said  to  close  Chocano's  early 
period,  as  distinguished  from  his  own  conscious  change  of 
I  direction  signalized  by  Alma  America.     It  is  a  romantic, 
I  individualistic,  subjective  period,  in  which  youthful  ex- 
I  travagance,  unchecked  spontaneity  and  exuberant  imagina- 
tion run  rife.     Between  El  Derrumbe  and  the  following 
collection  the  poet  became  aware  of  a  need  for  more  re- 
straint, more  artistic  control  of  his  gushing  inspiration. 
The  definite  change  fyom  spontaneitv  to  artistry  took  place; 
perhaps  this  is  what  Chocano  means  when  he  caTTsTiimself, 
henceforth,  an  objective  poet.     But  Parnassian?     Neither 


JOSE  SANTOS  CHOCANO  277 

his  native  critic,  V.  (.arcia  CaKlcion,  nor  his  most  enthu- 
siastic Spanish  commentator,  Gonzalez-Bianco,  finds  any- 
thing of  the  genuine  Parnassianism  of  a  Leconte  de  Lisle  in 
him. 

3.  Alma  America  (1906) 

Allowing  for  personal  differences,  we  may  look  upon 
Alma  America  as  oeeupyinj^;  a  position  of  importance  in 
Giocano's  career  similar  to  that  occupied  by  the  Cantos  de 
Vida  y  Esperanza  in  the  career  of  Ruben  Dario;  thai  is, 
insofar  as  each  collection  stands  for  the  summit  of  the 
poet's  achievement  and  a  synthesis  of  the  entire  man. 
Ever)'  element  in  Alma  America  was  already  forecasted  in 
the  previous  work  of  Chocano,  as  was  every  element  in  the 
Cantos  de  Vida  y  Esperanza  present  in  Dario's  anterior  la- 
bors. But  whereas  the  Dario  volume  represents  an  ethi- 
cal, as  distinguished  from  an  aesthetic  advance  (sim 
aesthetics  had  reached  their  culmination  in  Prosas  Pro- 
fanas),  the  Chocano  collection  stands  for  aesthetic,  as  dis- 
tinguished from  ethical  progress.  The  poet  here  says  noth- 
ing he  has  not  uttered  before;  but  how  much  better  he  ex- 
presses it!  He  is  the  same  complex  individuality,  but  he 
has  mastered  his  art. 

It  will  be  noted  that  the  sub-title  of  Alma  America  is 
Poemas  Indo-Espaholes.  We  have  thus,  in  the  title  and  the 
sub-title  a  synthesis  of  the  chief  elements  in  the  book:  the 
sense  of  continental  destiny,  of  the  natives  conquered  by 
the  Spaniards,  and  of  the  spiritual  bonds  that  link  the 
former  colonies  to  the  motlier  nation.  So  universal  is  tlie 
poet  in  his  sympathies,  so  contemporary  with  all  the  fac- 
tors, that  he  feels  himself  at  will  an  Inca,  a  Conquistador, 


278      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

a  proud  American.  Even  more :  for  he  can  behold,  though 
not  without  certain  reservations,  a  union  of  the  Saxon  and 
the  Latin  elements.  He  possesses  an  intense  race  pride 
that  is  at  times  incompatible  with  his  early  protestations 
of  universal  brotherhood.  And  although  one  need  not 
stress  too  much  the  apparent  incongruity  of  an  author  open- 
ing a  book  of  American  poems  with  an  address  to  the 
monarch  of  that  nation  which  long  held  the  colonies  in 
subjection,  one  may  easily  understand  why  some  country- 
men should  feel  that  the  note  produced  an  element  of  dis- 
harmony. 

Some  of  the  prefatory  material  of  Alma  America  (we 
should  remember  that  by  this  time  the  poet  has  arrived  in 
Spain),  shows  strikingly  the  change  that  has  come  over 
Chocano's  outlook  upon  his  expressional  medium.  For 
his  heraldic  proclamation  "0  encuentro  camino  6  me  lo 
abro"  (Either  I  find  a  path  or  I'll  open  myself  one!)  we 
are  well  prepared.  The  Hugoesque  poetic  swaslibuckling 
is  an  old  trait.  But  directly  after  this  sword-brandishing 
we  reach  the  renunciation:  "Tenganse  por  no  escritos 
cutantos  libros  de  poesias  aparecieron  antes  con  mi  nom- 
bre."  The  poet  of  "let  there  be  light"  here  asks  "let  there 
be  darkness."  .  .  .  "Let  all  books  that  have  previously  ap- 
peared over  my  signature  be  considered  as  not  having  been 
written."  And  again:  "My  poetry  is  objective;  and  in 
such  a  sense  alone  do  I  care  to  be  the  Poet  of  America." 
Poets  of  America,  however,  are  not  made  by  the  poets  them- 
selves; they  are  chosen  by  the  people;  objective  or  not  ob- 
jective, Chocano's  poetry  has  made  him  Spanish  America's 
poet.  Here,  too,  appears  the  motto  of  Chocano  which  he 
has  since  repeated  with  emphasis:     "En  el  arte  caben  todas 


JOSt  SANTOS  CHOCANO  279 

las  escuelas  como  on  iin  rayo  dc  Sol  todas  los  colores," — 
in  Art  are  contained  all  schools,  even  as  all  colors  in  a 
sunbeam."  And  here  we  have  tiie  n^fiitation  of  Chocano's 
own  claims  to  objectivism.  It  is  true  that  a  more  objective 
glint  shines  from  some  of  tlie  author's  later  poetry,  par- 
ticularly some  of  the  sonnets  in  Alnia  America  and  some 
of  the  modernist  verse  in  Fiat  Lux! ;  but  this  is  only  one  of 
the  colors  in  Chocano's  poetic  sunbeam.  Why  should  poets 
bother  with  terminology?  Aren't  there  enough  critics  to 
toy  with  names? 

Yet  sometimes  the  poet  makes  the  best  critic — if  not  of 
himself,  of  his  fellow  poet.  Witness  the  admirable  Pre- 
ludio  furnished  by  Dario  to  Alma  America.  Not  only  is 
it  good  poetry,  but  good  criticism;  Dario  understood  Cho- 
cano  well,  and  in  the  thirty  lines  of  his  Prelude  has  said 
quite  as  much  as  the  Peruvian's  critics,  and  how  much  more 
beautifully!  Dario  sees  Chocano's  relationship  to  Pan,  to 
the  Sun,  to  the  Ocean,  his  spokesmanship  for  the  continent. 
He  notes  his  unevenness,  his  tempestuousness;  he  notes,  too, 
the  compensatory  vigor: 

Pero  hay  en  ese  verso  tan  vigoroso  y  terso 
una  sangre  que  apenas  vereis  en  otro  verso; 
una  sangre  que  cuando  en  el  verso  circula 
como  la  luz  penetra  y  como  la  onda  ondula. 

(Do  you  catch  the  penetration  of  the  light  and  the  undula- 
tion of  the  waves  in  Dario's  very  vowels  and  consonants  of 
that  last  line?)  The  great  Nicaraguan  saw  that  Chocano's 
Pegasus  was  content,  "for  Pegasus  pastures  in  tlie  meadows 
of  the  Inca."  He  recognized  Chocano's  intimate  acquaint- 
ance with  nature,  yet  realized  that  the  Peruvian's  great 
power  lay  in  his  sonorous  trumpeting. 


280       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

Pero  su  brazo  es  para  levantar  la  trompeta 
hacia  donde  se  annimcia  la  aurora  del  Prof  eta; 
y  es  hecho  para  dar  a  la  virtud  del  viento 
la  expresion  del  terrible  clarin  del  pensamiento.  .  .  . 

He  saw,  too,  the  poet's  essentially  dual  nature,  and  that 
he  lived  "on  love  of  America  and  passion  for  Spain." 
There  is  all  of  Chocano  in  that  Preludio,  and  not  a  little 
of  Dario. 

Rodo,  too,  who  had  at  once  felt  Dario's  artistic  inca- 
pacity (but  is  incapacity  the  right  word?)  for  becoming  the 
"poet  of  America,"  beheld  the  right  man  in  Chocano.  "I 
recognized  in  you,"  he  wrote  to  Chocano,  "the  poet  who, 
through  a  rare  and  admirable  combination,  unites  the  proud 
audacity  of  inspiration  with  sculptural  firmness  of  form; 
and  who,  with  generous  purpose,  proposes  to  return  to 
poetry  its  arms  of  combat  and  its  civilizing  mission,  thus 
hitting  upon  the  path  which,  to  my  mind,  will  be  that  of 
(Spanish)  American  poetry." 

The  praise  of  Dario  and  Rodo  finds  its  full  justification 
in  Alma  America,  which  is  one  of  the  most  notable  collec- 
tions of  poems  issued  by  a  Spanish  American. 

Let  us  consider  the  volume  from  three  points  of  view: 
(1)  its  Hispanism,  (2)  its  Americanism,  (3)  its  revela- 
tions of  the  poet  and  his  attitude  toward  his  life  and  art. 
Its  Hispanism,  as  we  have  seen  from  his  earlier  Canto  del 
Siglo,  is  conciliatory,  aiming  at  a  spiritual  unity  of  all  the 
Spanish-speaking  peoples;  his  Americanism  is  not  only  po- 
litical, social,  and  at  times  Pan-American,  not  only  con- 
cerned with  nature,  but  also  with  history  and  the  con- 
quered tribes.  For  that  same  Chocano  who  looks  forward 
with  hope  to  the  conquered  mother  country,  looks  back 


JOSE  SANTOS  CHOCANO  281 

uitli  atavistic  regret  at  the  eoiuiuerccl  indigenous  tribes;"^ 
a-;  to  his  self,  it  is  suffieient  here  to  indicate  that  it  is  a 
It  implex  affair,  identifying  itself  in  remarkable  degree  with 
all  \\\c  obj<\'ts  of  its  interest.  Chocano  may  be  obj(>ctive  in 
style  (and  that  only  at  times);  he  is  essentially  a  personal 
poet. 

The  opening  poem,  Ofrenda  A  Espaiia,  at  once  strikes 
the  Hispanic  note;  the  poet  eomes  from  across  the  sea, — 
lliat  sea  over  which  Columbus  sailed  in  quest  of  the  Indies, 
— and  brings  greetings  from  Spanish  America.  "Oh, 
Mother  Spain,  take  all  my  life;  for  I  have  given  you  the 
Sun  of  my  mountain,  and  you  have  given  me  the  Sun  of 
\  our  banner.  .  .  ."  Even  the  language  in  which  he  speaks 
is  hers.  The  same  sentiment  is  brought  out  by  means  of  a 
beautiful  symbolism  in  one  of  the  best  poems  of  the  col- 
lection, die  Cronica  Alfoiisina. 

On  tliat  sea  which  the  poet  has  crossed  to  bring  his  of- 
fering to  Spain  two  fantastic  ships  meet  on  their  opposite 
course.  One  of  them  bears  as  its  figurehead  a  great  golden 
lion,  the  other  a  castle  of  silver.  The  lion,  of  course,  is  the 
heraldic  animal  of  Leon  and  symbolizes  strength;  the  castle 
is  the  emblem  of  Castile,  the  symbol  of  fancy,  and  castles  in 
Spain.  Both  crews  speak  tlie  same  tongue:  "Oh,  lengua 
del  Pais  de  la  Utopia," — the  language  of  the  Land  of 
Utopia.  On  one  of  the  vessels,  bound  for  the  New  World, 
is  Dulcinea,  "grave  as  an  Ideal,  sad  as  a  Dream,  mute  as  an 
Enchantment,  well  wrapped  in  her  cloak."  On  the  other, 
returning  from  America,  is  Jimena  (she  of  the  Cid),  "on 
her  feet  the  anklets  of  the  savage,  on  her  shoulder  the 

'  The  note  is  common  in  modern  Spanish-American  letters.     Cf.  some  of 
the  short  stories  by  Ugarte,  Ghiraldo,  Ricardo  Jaimes  Freyre. 


282       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

skin  of  the  luxurious  vicuna,  and  in  her  right  hand  a  fan  of 
rarest  plumage."  .  .  .  The  one  bears  to  the  New  World 
all  the  idealism,  all  the  faith,  all  the  passion  of  the  Old 
Spain;  the  other  carries  back  from  the  New  World  the 
youthful  power,  the  ardent  prowess,  the  sacred  wrath  neces- 
sary to  infuse  new  life.  Don  Quixote  and  Rodrigo  (re- 
spectively, of  course,  the  lover  and  the  husband  of  Dulcinea 
and  Jimena),  experience  a  change  of  heart  upon  overhear- 
ing the  mid-ocean  colloquy;  in  Jimena's  nature  there  is 
something  that  Don  Quixote  needs  to  complete  his  own;  in 
Dulcinea's  nature  Rodrigo  likewise  beholds  a  complement- 
ary personality.  Wliereupon  Don  Quixote  returns  to  Spain 
with  Jimena  and  Don  Rodrigo  fares  forth  to  America  in 
company  of  Dulcinea.  The  Lion  of  strength  and  courage 
has  come  to  the  Castle  of  dreams  and  ideals;  old  Spain  and 
the  new  are  once  again  united. 

Such  a  union  of  power  and  delicacy,  of  strength  and 
grace,  are  ever  present  in  the  poet's  mind.  When  he  visits 
the  Museo  del  Prado  he  beholds  in  Velazquez  and  Goya 
just  such  a  distinction;  the  first  evokes  in  his  memory  the 
scenes  of  the  Conquest;  the  second,  the  days  of  the  Colonial 
epoch.  And  thinking  of  his  native  mountains  as  he  gazes 
at  the  gallery  of  paintings,  he  feels  his  double  allegiance  to 
America  and  Spain: 

y  quise  en  el  Museo,  pensando  en  mi  montana 
jser  la  mitad  de  America  y  la  mitad  de  Espana! 

A  similar,  more  beautiful  evocation  of  the  past  occurs  in 
the  poem  En  La  Armeria  Real,  where  the  sights  in  the  royal 
armory  more  naturally  recall  to  him  the  glorious  deeds  of 
Spaniards  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic,  thus  forming  yet 


JOSE  SANTOS  CHOCANO  283 

another  bond  bclwoon  the  heroes  in  whom  flow  the  same 
blood  and  the  same  traditions. 

ll  is,  <iiiite  naturally,  the  more  purely  American  element 
that  oeeupies  most  of  the  s{)ace  of  the  colleetion.  Here  is 
tlie  real  Chocano  in  all  his  chastened  exuberance,  yet  exu- 
berance none  the  less.  Here  is  the  lover  of  the  native 
fauna  and  flora,  the  fellow  spirit  of  Inca  and  Conquistador 
alike,  the  singer  of  continentalism,  of  union  between  the 
northern  and  the  southern  neighbors,  the  trumpeter  of 
epochs.  Here  is  the  passionate  singer  of  the  cities,  old  and 
new;  of  the  rivers  and  mountains;  of  a  new  world  within 
a  New  \^  orld.  Hear  him  glorify  the  Andes,  which  Dario 
called  the  vertebrae  of  a  continent: 

As  winds  along,  in  snowy  marble  bare, 

The  carven  serpent  of  Laocoon, 

O'er  a  whole  continent  the  Andes  run. 

Braiding  their  mighty  knots  in  shining  air. 

A  horror  like  to  Dante's  thrills  us  there, 

Before  that  crowd  of  heroes,  every  one 

Lifting  a  shield  of  granite  in  the  sun. 

And  crowned  with  silver  helmet  gleaming  fair. 

Each  hero's  heart  is  filled  with  boundless  grief 
Because  he  longs  to  shout;  he  trembles,  fights, 
Is  rent  with  pain — and  yet  no  shout  we  hear. 
In  sombre  ecstasy,  his  sole  relief 
Is  to  send  downward  from  his  farthest  heights 
A  wandering  river,  like  a  silent  tear. 

Read  his  epic  conception  of  the  Mouths  of  the  Orinoco: 

From  prisoning  towers  of  rock,  for  miles  on  miles 
Thou  fleest  through  the  forest,  gliding  tliere 
Like  some  long  dragon  borne  on  wings  of  air; 
And  fifty  times  thou  beatest  on  tliine  isles. 


284      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

Twisting  and  winding,  shifting  ceaselessly, 
Through  fifty  gates  at  last  thou  rushest  free; 
Reaching  the  broad  blue  spaces  of  the  sea, 
Thou  through  thy  fifty  mouths  dost  breathe  a  sigh. 

Thou  seemest,  when  thou  meetest  Ocean's  tide, 
The  end  of  some  huge  rope,  outravelled  wide, 
While  fastened  to  an  isle  each  strand  remains. 
Hail  to  thee,  Conqueror,  who  towards  the  deep 
In  echoing  silver  car  dost  onward  sweep, 
Holding  within  thine  hand-grasp  fifty  reins ! 

Or  his  sonnet  to  the  Straits  of  Magellan: 

In  ocean's  perilous  night,  without  a  clue. 
The  daring  captain  sails.     The  straining  bark 
Sees  opening  close  before  it,  grim  and  dark, 
A  mountain  cleft  in  twain,  and  ventures  through. 
The  sails  are  torn,  the  mad  winds  rage  with  might; 
Sometimes  upon  one  side  a  fire  they  see; 
Along  both  shores  hoarse  wolves  howl  stormily, 
Sending  their  voices  through  the  gloomy  night. 

On  the  steep  sides,  the  billows  bark  and  bark; 

Foam  clad,  they  seem  white  dogs  there  in  the  dark. 

Against  the  black  wolves  on  the  lonely  shore. 

The  ship  sails  on  and  on — and  as  of  old 

The  sea  kept  parting  before  Moses  bold. 

The  land  keeps  opening  slowly,  more  and  more. 

^  Note  how  into  tlie  simple  sonnet  form  he  can  infuse  the 

■^  ^^io  -fepirit;  note  the  epic  conception  even  in  the  bold  fig- 
ures. And  note,  too,  that  when  he  approaches  themes  in 
their  very  nature  less  ample,  yet  no  less  deep,  he  can  ad- 
just his  manner  and  even  his  metaphor  to  the  required  deli- 
cacy. For  example,  the  beautiful  poem  on  The  Mag- 
nolia : 


JOSE!  SANTOS  CHOCANO  285 

Deep  in  llie  forest,  full  of  song  and  frafirance, 
Blooms  the  magnolia,  clclieafc  and  lij^lit. 
Like  snowy  woo!  anionjj  the  thorns  entangled. 
Or,  on  the  quiet  lake,  a  foam-like  while. 

Its  vase  is  worthy  of  a  Greeian  maker, 

A  marble  wonder  of  the  classic  days. 

It  shows  its  line,  firm  roundness,  like  a  lady 

Who  with  bared  breast  her  loveliness  displays. 

Is  it  a  pearl?     Is  it  a  tear?     We  know  not! 
Between  it  and  the  moon,  with  mystery  rife. 
There  is  some  unknown  story  of  enchantment. 
In  which  perhaps  a  white  dove  lost  its  life; 

For  it  is  pure  and  white  and  light  and  graceful, 
Like  a  soft  moonbeam  on  a  snowbank  deep. 
That  rests  upon  the  snow  and  mingles  with  it; 
Or  like  a  dove  upon  the  branch  asleep. 

)r  that  on  The  Orchids: 

Freaks  of  bright  crystal,  airy  beauties  fair, 
Wliose  enigmatic  forms  amaze  tlie  eye — 
Crowns  fit  to  deck  Apollo's  brows  on  high. 
Adornments  meet  for  halls  of  splendor  rare! 
They  spring  from  knots  in  tree-trunks,  rising  there 
In  sweet  gradation;  winding  wondrously. 
They  twist  their  serpent  stems,  and  far  and  nigh 
Hang  overhead  like  wingless  birds  in  air. 

Lonelv,  like  pensive  heads,  all  fetterless. 
Lofty  and  free  they  bloom;  by  no  dull  chain 
Their  flowers  to  any  tyrant  root  are  bound; 
Because  they  too,  at  war  with  pettiness, 
Desire  to  live  like  souls  that  know  no  stain, 
Without  one  touch  of  contact  with  the  ground. 


286      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

And  do  you  see  how  Chocano's  rebellious  spirit,  now  chas- 
tened, will  out  in  the  metaphor  of  the  eleventh  line,  as 
translated? 

This  is  the  poet  in  whom  Gonzalez-Bianco  would  see  a 
teacher  of  his  continent's  natural  history,  its  birds  and  its 
beasts,  quite  as  instructive  as  the  more  sober  and  less  at- 
tractive text-books.  And  this  is  the  background  of  that 
New  World  whose  past,  present  and  future  are  so  strongly 
felt  by  Chocano. 

Of  its  past  he  feels  himself  an  organic  part;  he  is  an 
Inca,  he  is  a  Viceroy.     Who  better  than  he  has  sung  the 
romantic  tales  of  Inca  princesses  and  Conquistador  lovers? 
Among  the  best  of  these  stands  out  La  Nusta  (Inca  Prin- 
cess), in  which  the  amatory  situation  of  El  Derrumhe  is 
reversed.     The  Spaniard  Garcia  de  Peralta  loves  an  Inca 
princess  who  herself  loves  the  Inca  Hualpa-Capac.     Since, 
as  the  poem  avers,  there  is  no  Spanish  soul  that  does  not  at- 
tain its  object,  the  Spaniard  has  the  fortunate  suitor  cap- 
tured and  imprisoned,  forcing  the  princess  to  pay  with  her 
virtue  for  the  privilege  of  visiting  her  preferred  lover.     Be- 
fore surrendering  her  person,  however,  she  rubs  poison  ovei 
her  lips,  thus  slaying  her  violator,  her  sweetheart  and  her- 
self.    Yet  even  in  death  she  is  cheated  of  her  triumph,  foi 
she  is  buried  with  Garcia  de  Peralta.     Chocano,  who  ha^ 
learned  the  wisdom  of  brevity,  wisely  compressed  the  tah 
into  the  limits  of  some  nine  pages;  there  are  none  of  die 
philosophical  intrusions  that  mar  the  early  versions  of  Li 
Epopeya  del  Morro  and  El  Derrumbe.     Similar  to  L( 
Nusta  in  inspiration  are  Ante  Las  Ruinas  and  El  Tesoro  d< 
Los  Incas.     When  he  gazes  upon  the  ruins  of  the  surf 
worshippers'  temple  he  feels  tlie  royal  mantle  of  the  Inc; 


JOSt  SANTOS  CHOCANO  287 

fall  upon  his  shoulders,  ami  an  umcr  voico  speaks  to  him: 
'*PoL't,  behold  your  temple.  You  have  heen  horn  too 
late!'*  The  colonial  ruins  address  him  with  a  similar  mes- 
sage: "Poet,  sing  tlie  Past;  you  were  born  for  that!" 
And  truly,  Chocano  summons  the  spirit  of  the  past  with  a 
rare  artistry  that  proves  him  its  son;  yet  because  he  so 
poignantly  feels  it  as  a  past  he  is  by  the  same  token  a  poet 
of  the  present, — a  present  with  which  he  is  discontent,  widi 
which  he  is  not  in  harmony,  and  of  whose  fleeting  character 
he  is  deeply  aware.  This  may  help  explain  his  glances 
both  into  the  past  and  forward  into  the  future;  that  is  his 
method  of  escaping  the  immediate. 

The  more  universal  spirit  that  grows  out  of  his  con- 
tinental vision, — which  is  itself  an  outgrowth  of  his  staunch 
yet  not  servile  nationalism, — appears  in  the  sonnet  to  The 
Isthmus  of  Panama,  in  the  Epic  of  the  Pacific,  in  The  Song 
of  tlie  Future,  and  other  poems.  Here,  too,  we  glimpse  the 
much-mooted  Pan-Americanism  which  so  many  Spanish- 
Americans  fear  is  but  the  lamb's  skin  over  our  leonine  im- 
perialistic aims.  The  universalism  is  no  longer  the  com- 
munistic socialism  sung  by  the  poet  in  his  juvenile  days; 
that,  it  would  seem,  has  with  his  art  become  chastened. 

The  Isthmus  of  Panama,  to  Chocano,  is  the  symbol  of 
Peace,  Union  and  Harmony,  making  of  two  oceans,  one. 
The  metaphor  of  the  closing  tercets  is  one  of  Chocano's 
most  beautiful  figures, — beautiful  for  its  symbolism,  its  or- 
ganic connection  with  the  subject,  its  universality. 

Ave  que  hoy  se  abre  el  seno  en  los  prolijos 
cuidados  de  su  amor;  ,;de  que  te  extranas, 
si  es  por  calmar  el  hambre  de  hijos? 


288       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

;  Tu,  como  esa  ave,  con  tu  proprio  acero, 
te  vas  tambien  rasgando  las  entranas, 
para  darle  la  vida  a  un  mundo  entero! 

A  stem  beauty,  it  is  true,  this  rending  of  the  bosom  to 
give  life  to  a  whole  world,  but  must  all  beauty  be  fragile? 

If  the  Istmo  de  Panama  represents  the  Isthmus  as  a  sym- 
bol of  union  achieved  by  the  blending  of  two  oceans,  the 
Epopeya  del  Pacifico  seems  similarly  to  blend  the  races 
thus  united.  In  tlie  following  collection.  Fiat  Lux!,  Cho- 
cano,  who  is  fond  of  issuing  little  manifestoes  a  sentence  or 
two  long,  has  written:  "My  ideal  in  Life  and  in  Art 
would  be  the  harmonization  of  the  Latin  imagination,  Ger- 
manic gravity  and  Saxon  energy."  It  is  tliis  Saxon  energy- 
that  is  exalted  in  the  Epic  of  the  Pacific,  yet  not  without 
a  sense  of  that  same  fear  which  has  troubled  less  optimistic 
spirits.  If  Spanish  America  desires  to  be  free,  tlie  poet 
tells  his  fellow  Americans,  it  must  imitate  the  United 
States  first  and  equal  them  afterwards.  (Is  there  not  here 
a  reminiscence  of  Marti's  thoughts?)  The  sense  of  fear 
to  which  we  have  referred,  however,  is  lulled  by  a  knowl- 
edge of  continental  geography:  "Let  none  grieve  about  a 
future  conquest ;  our  forests  know  no  better  race,  our  Andes 
know  not  what  it  is  to  be  white,  our  rivers  disdain  the 
bravery  of  a  Saxon;  and  thus,  on  the  day  in  which  the 
people  of  another  race  dares  to  explore  our  countries,  it 
will  issue  a  shriek  of  horror,  for  miasma  and  fever,  the 
reptile  and  the  swamp  will  sink  it  into  the  earth,  be- 
neath the  lire  of  the  Sun."  This,  to  be  sure,  is  legitimate 
patriotism  of  a  continental  sort,  but  let  us  not  hasten  to 
call  it  Pan-Americanism.     On  the  other  hand,  let  us  not 


JOSE  SANTOS  CHOCANO  289 

he  blind  to  Uio  virile  spirit  which  it  embodies,  and  to  the 
determined,  if  fiery,  assertion  of  a  personal  Monroe  Doc- 
trine, as  it  were,  which  the  words  connote.  It  is  not  the 
race  of  the  blond  hair  that  will  br(\ik  open  the  canal  at 
last,  declares  the  poet  in  his  fourth  stanza.  The  manual 
work  is  brought  by  tlie  black-haired  folk, — the  race  of  the 
Pyramids,  the  race  that  gave  its  blood  to  the  Roman  Circus 
and  its  sweat  to  die  Suez  Canal.  Here,  too,  the  emblem  is 
the  white  banner  of  Labor  and  Peace.  In  die  poem  oc- 
cur two  ol  the  noblest  lines  in  modem  poetry: 

que  el  trabajo  no  es  cul{)a  de  un  Eden  ya  perdido, 
sino  cl  I'lnico  medio  de  llegarlo  a  gozar. 

in  which  tlie  poet  counsels  his  fellow  men  to  remember  that 

toil  is  not  the  curse  of  a  Paradise  lost,  but  the  only  method 

of  ever  attaining  to  it. 

El  Canto  del  Porvenir  (The  Song  of  the  Future)  is 
j  equally  prophetic  and  equally  reserved  upon  certain  points. 
!  Balboa  is  represented  as  rising  from  the  past  and  beholding 

his  ocean.     The  boa  of  the  Andes  has  been  cut  in  two,  the 

Canal  constructed;  Magellan  weeps,  for  how  useless  is  his 
i  strait  now!     Japan  and  Russia  have  contended  in  war,  and 

the  United  States  has  become  the  peacemaker.     But  out  of 

a  disinterested  love  of  peace?     Hardly. 

La  Paz  fue.     No  era  bueno  para  el  Pais  del  Norte 
el  triunfo  decisivo  de  la  amarilla  Corte, 
ni  menos  el  temible  dominio  de  los  Czares 
en  tan  ansiadas  tierras  y  codiciados  mares. 

Asi,  en  la  Paz,  vencicron  los  Estados  Unidos; 
y  certeros,  astutos,  agiles,  prevenidos, 


290      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

trepanaron  las  tierras,  cercenaron  los  Andes, 
unieron  dos  oceanos  .  .  .  y  se  sintieron  grandes. 

"Thus,  in  Peace,"  reads  the  fifth  line,  "the  United  States 
conquered."  The  finale  of  the  poem  (which  is  subtitled 
Palabras  Intemacionales — International  Words)  hints 
at  a  defeat  for  a  war-clad  Japan  and  at  a  bi-continental 
union  of  the  northern  and  southern  elements.  "Liberty!" 
proclaims  this  new  race,  of  which  the  Adam  comes  from  the 
North  and  the  Eve  from  the  Latins. 

And  the  Land  of  the  Amazons  was  the  Center  of  the  World. 

Pan-Americanism  of  a  type,  then,  there  is  in  Chocano ;  I 
would  not,  however,  call  him  the  poet  of  Pan- America:  not 
by  any  means.  Nor  would  I  be  misunderstood  as  denying 
him  his  right  to  sing  his  own  country  in  the  bold  strophes 
that  reveal  his  love  of  Whitman  and  his  emulation  of  the 
good  gray  poet.  Together  with  the  Dario  of  the  Canto 
a  la  Argentina  he  represents  the  most  favorable  attitude  to- 
ward us  among  the  prominent  poets. 

The  essential  Chocano,  as  far  as  his  native  America  is 
concerned,  dwells  in  the  glorifier  of  its  many-colored 
epochs.  And  it  is  in  his  personal  utterances,  as  they  refer 
to  his  own  temperament  and  his  views  upon  art  and  life, 
that  this  glorifier  is  to  be  found.  He  is,  as  we  have  long 
ago  guessed,  an  arrogant,  proud,  at  times  boastful,  ebullient 
spirit;  in  the  pomp  of  his  verse  (Simbolo)  there  is  some- 
thing Pre-Columbine  and  aught  of  the  Conquistador;  he  is 
doubly  epic  in  nature,  a  son  of  the  Sun  as  well  as  of  the 
Lion,  of  the  Inca  as  well  as  of  Spain.  "I  am,"  he  declares 
in  the  sonnet  Blason,  wherein  he  presents  us  witli  his  spirit- 


JOSE  SANTOS  CHOCANO  291 

ual  coat  ol  arms,  *"liic  singer  of  autochlhunuus  and  aborig- 
inal America;  my  lyre  posseses  a  soul,  my  song  an  Ideal. 
.  .  .  Wlien  I  feel  myself  an  Inca,  I  render  homage  to  the 
Sun,  whicli  gives  me  the  seepter  of  its  royal  j)o\ver;  when  I 
feel  myself  a  Spaniard  and  evoke  the  Colonial  epoch,  my 
strophes  ring  out  like  crystal  trumpets.  My  fancy  derives 
from  Moorish  ancestry;  the  Andes  are  of  silver  but  the 
Lion  is  of  gold,  and  the  two  races  mingle  with  an  epic 
rumble.  The  blood  is  Spanish  but  the  pulse  is  Incaic,  and 
if  I  were  not  a  poet,  perhaps  I  should  have  been  a  white 
Adventurer  or  an  Indian  Emperor!"  .  .  .  "How  many 
times  I  have  been  born!"  he  exclaims  in  Avatar.  '"How 
many  times  I  have  been  incarnated!  I  am  of  America 
twice,  and  twice  of  Spain.  If  I  am  now  a  poet,  I  was  a 
Viceroy  in  the  past,  a  Captain  in  conquests  and  a  Monarch 
of  tlie  Sun."  He  was  Yupanqui,  he  was  de  Soto,  but  today 
he  is  more  than  them  all,  in  the  possession  of  his  loved 
one.  His  muse  {La  Musa  Fuerte)  must  have  strength  as 
well  as  beauty.  "I  am  pleased  at  the  same  time  with  fruits 
and  with  flowers;  the  concentrated  juice,  the  perfumed  es- 
sence; and  in  my  song,  therefore,  in  multiple  cadence,  are 
all  the  graces  and  all  the  powers.  The  viceroys  have  given 
me  their  lyric  skill  and  tlie  conquerors  their  august  reful- 
gence, and  so,  from  verse  to  verse,  there  is  the  heroic  dif- 
ference that  existed  between  the  viceroys  and  the  conquer- 
ors. I  confess  tliat  though  I  love  die  colonial  pomp,  I  pre- 
fer the  metals  to  the  finest  chords.  .  .  ."  It  is  in  the  final 
poem  of  the  collection,  however,  that  this  self-heralding 
reaches  a  worthy  climax  of  identification  with  his  Alma 
America.  Here  the  poet  becomes  the  primitive  soul  of  the 
•\ndes  and  the  forests,  the  rustle  of  the  leaves  by  night,  the 


292       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

creaking  of  the  trunks,  the  howling  of  the  beasts.  From 
these  he  learns  the  secrets  of  his  verses;  his  lyre,  which  is 
of  stone,  has  an  eighth  string  added  to  it, — the  string  of 
wild  music.  "And  thus  do  I  sing  with  my  lyre  of  eight 
strings."  Many  times  he  feels  that  he  is,  at  bottom,  a  tree 
with  gigantic  roots  and  enormous  trunk,  housing  within  him 
the  jaguars  of  the  forest;  at  others,  he  is  a  peak  of  the 
Andes,  on  which  congeals  the  snow  of  ten  centuries.  ^And 
the  voice  of  the  centuries  tells  him  that  he  is  the  primitive 
soul,  "the  primitive  soul  of  the  Andes  and  the  forests." 

This  analysis  of  Alma  America,  long  as  it  may  have 
seemed,  has  touched  only  upon  certain  characteristics  of 
outlook  and  style.  The  book  is  in  remarkable  degree  the 
soul  of  the  continent  for  which  it  speaks;  it  is  spiritual  his- 
tory. If  the  foreign  reader  seeks  a  single  book  that  will 
communicate  to  him  the  complex  Spanish-American  soul, 
here  it  is. 

4.  Fiat  Lux!  (1908) 

Fiat  Lux!  is  an  anthology  of  the  poet's  works  previous  to 
Alma  America.  It  represents  a  most  rigid  selection,  and 
contains  besides,  some  of  the  later  work  of  the  author. 
It  is  divided  into  four  parts:  Classic  Poems,  so  called; 
Romantic  Poems,  The  Epic  of  the  Morro  and  Modernist 
Poems;  it  is  in  this  last  section  that  the  new  poetry  occurs, 
not  unmingled  with  anterior  labors.  Inasmuch  as  we  have 
already  sampled  the  earlier  poems,  it  will  be  necessary 
here  only  to  give  heed  to  the  later  verses. 

The  Modernist  section  begins  with  an  interesting  bio- 
graphical account.     He  was  bom  into  times  of  strife,  he « 
tells  us,  and  was  lulled  by  the  harmony  of  trumpets,  "of 


JOSE  SANTOS  CHOCANO  293 

\\hicli  all  my  poetry  is  but  an  oclio;  and  as  my  years  of 
infancy  were  years  of  powder  and  shot,  my  mother's  kiss 
was  a  purple  flower."  He  played  very  little  as  a  rliild, 
he  writes,  and  it  is  easy  to  believe  him,  for  his  childhood 
poems  reveal  a  mind  almost  too  sensitive  to  thought.  "No- 
body, nobody  understands  how  old  within  a  man  nuist  be 
who  never  played  as  a  child.  .  .  ."  He  recalls  how,  as  a 
child,  he  heard  the  trumpets  of  tlic  conquerors  blow;  he 
refers,  of  course,  to  the  victory  of  Chile  over  Peru  in 
1883;  at  this  time  he  was  but  eight  years  old.  "Hear," 
said  his  mother  to  him.  "And  I  heard, — I  hear  it  yet,  and 
shall  continue  to  hear  it  until  a  louder  trumpet  sounds." 
He  then  refers  to  his  revolutionary  sentiments,  and  his 
prison  experiences;  "and  I,  who  was  not  a  child,  decided 
to  become  a  man."  It  was  the  realization  of  his  native 
landscape  that  aroused  his  poetry  to  broader  visions.  And 
into  this  life  of  turbulence  and  love  of  nature,  came,  "en 
medio  del  camino,"  the  love  of  a  woman.  "Woman,  you 
were  like  a  marine  bird  fallen  upon  the  bare  deck  of  my 
ship!"  .  .  . 

Notice  how  naturally,  for  all  its  blasonrv  and  trumpet- 
ing, Chocano's  poetry  blossoms  out  of  his  life.  Born  into 
dire  days  for  his  native  country,  he  sings  a  new  world  and 
chants  the  bravery  of  his  countrymen.  Awakened  to  a  real- 
ization of  the  native  landscape,  he  sets  its  beauty  in  the 
strophes  of  his  verses.  Gladdened  by  love,  he  wrote, 
rarely  in  the  misogynist  vein  (and  then  only  as  a  young- 
ster), poems  that  reveal  the  lover  as  a  tamed  ranger  of 
the  forest.  For  always  it  is  power,  rather  than  grace, 
«  that  is  characteristic  of  Chocano's  poetry,  as  it  is  of  his 
outlook  upon  life  in  general.     As  in  the  sonnet  La  Musa 


294      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AIMERICAN  LITERATURE 

Fuerte  (The  Powerful  Muse),  so  in  his  Hymn  to  Will  [El 
Himno  A  La  Voluntad)  he  likens  life  to  the  female  who  is 
attracted  to  the  strong  man  and  surrenders  to  his  embrace. 

Como  es  hembra,  la  Vida 
ama  al  fuerte  varon; 
y  se  rinde  a  su  abrazo, 
porque  goza  en  rendirse  al  vigor. 

Voluntad,  alma  antigua; 
jes  preciso  triunfar! 
Donde  ha  habido  laureles 
ha  tenido  que  haber  voluntad. 

Laurels  go  to  him  of  the  strong  will.  And  it  is  this  will 
that  lies  at  the  bottom  of  Chocano's  optimism,  as  it  is 
Dario's  grace  that  mirrors  his  doubt. 

Two  at  least  of  the  newer  poems  are  noteworthy  for  a 
certain  Pamassianism, — a  Parnassianism  not  of  thought, 
but  of  verbal  art:  Danza  Griega  and  La  Caravana  del 
Sultan.  In  the  first,  the  "monorhythmical  sway"  of  the 
dancer  is  delicately  conveyed  not  only  by  a  subtle  change 
of  metres,  but  by  a  continuous  assonance  in  e;  in  the  sec- 
ond the  monotony  of  the  caravan  is  just  as  skilfully  con- 
veyed by  a  continuous  assonance  in  a. 

For  the  rest,  however,  there  is  nothing  essentially  new  to 
indicate  in  the  poet's  later  work.  His  first  productions 
pointed  unmistakably  toward  Alma  America,  and  while 
his  later  ones  do  not  hark  back  to  it  exclusively,  they  are 
the  result  of  that  same  inspiration,  chastened  by  a  sterner 
conception  of  art. 

Since  it  is  the  effort  of  every  Spanish- American  poet,  it* 
would  seem,  to  introduce  new  metrical  effects  into  the  Ian- 


JOSE  SANTOS  CHOCANO  295 

guagt*,  Chocano  has  sought  to  do  his  share.  Gonzalcz- 
IJIanco  considers,  as  the  Peruvian's  distinct  contribution, 
'tlie  verse  of  seventeen  syllables,  in  which  are  clearly  dis- 

I  tinguished  the  heniistichal  divisions  of  a  heptasyllable,  a 
pentasyllable,  and  a  final  pentasyllable."  (For  examples 
of  this,  see  Ante  Las  Riiinas  and  El  Tesoro  de  los  IncaSy  both 

I     in  Alma  America.) 

Chocano  is  still  a  young  man, — some  forty-five  years 

'    old,  and  it  may  be  too  early  to  summarize  his  life's  labors.' 

'  Of   all    the   contemporary   Spanish-American   authors,    Santos   Chocano 

;     seems  most  difficult  to  follow — from  his  very  birtli!     Ccjador  y  Frauca,  op. 

t     CI/.,  page  281',  gives  the  date  of  the  Peruvian's  birth  as  1867,  writh  a  query 

after  it.     Coester  gives  1875,  which  is  more  in  harmony  with  the  information 

received  from  Manuel  Gonzalez  Prada.     [See  C.  Santos  Gonzalez,  Foetus  y 

ICriticas  de  America,  Paris.     Page  512.] 
Ventura  Garcia  Calderon   refers  to  Heredia   and   Whitman  as  the  chief 
influences   upon   Chocano.     Heredia   is   his   master   in   the  classic   manner. 
In  one  of  his  latest  poems  the  Peruvian  embraces  free  metre  to  the  extent 
I     of  using  lines  of  twenty-syllables.     [See  Fragmento  Liminar  de  una  epoprya 
\     ciclica,  in  Sosotros,  February,  1918.] 


CHAPTER  V 
JOSE  MARIA  EGUREN 

It  is  one  of  the  peculiarities  of  literature  that  a  nation 
like  Peru,  which  up  to  a  relatively  short  time  ago  has  been 
so  backward  in  ideas  and  so  deficient  in  strong  literary  fig- 
ures, should  almost  at  the  same  time  produce  two  significant 
poets  that  are  alike  only  in  their  high  worth.  If  one 
wishes  to  acquire  quickly,  and  through  a  writer  who  does 
not  believe  in  mincing  words  or  ideas,  a  vivid  notion  of 
what  this  backward  Peru  was  like,  let  him  have  recourse  to 
Don  Rufino  Blanco-Fombona — a  personality  every  bit  as 
formidable  as  his  sonorous  name  sounds.  This  writer 
opens  his  essay  on  Manuel  Gonzalez  Prada,  the  great  Pe- 
ruvian libertarian,  with  an  indictment  of  early  Peru  and 
the  writings  produced  in  its  atmosphere;  the  eff^ect  of  this 
indictment  is  not  only  to  make  the  worth  of  Prada  stand 
out  more  shiningly  by  contrast  but  also  to  give  the  reader 
an  almost  palpable  realization  of  the  part  played  by  die 
very  climate  of  Lima  in  the  formation  of  the  character  of 
its  inhabitants.  Because  of  Lima's  colonial  importance 
as  the  seat  of  the  viceroy,  which  left  a  tradition  of  wealth, 
sensuality  and  court-life  behind  it,  and  because  of  the  cli- 
mate of  the  city,  where  even  the  dogs  are  more  gentle  and 
tame  than  anywhere  else,  the  court  became  a  breeding-' 
place  for  diplomats.     "Lima,"  writes  die  caustic  Venezue- 

296 


JOSt!  MARIA  EGUREN  297 

Ian,  "is  the  last  capital  of  America  to  obtain  liberty.  Nor 
does  it  Iree  itself  with  its  own  elforts,  but  with  the  aid 
!  of  Argentines,  Chileans,  Ecuadorians,  Bolivians,  Granad- 
ans  and  Venezuelans,  who  formeil  the  united  army  of 
South  America,  under  Bolivar  and  Marshal  Sucre."  This 
colonial  heritage  remains  with  tlie  nation's  letters  until  a 
very  late  date.  "Generally  speaking,"  says  Blanco-Fom- 
bona,  in  the  same  excellent  essay  upon  Gonzalez  Prada, 
"nowhere  have  the  South  American  emancipators  been 
written  against  so  bitterly  and  unjustly  as  in  Peru." 

Yet  it  is  Peru  of  recent  days  that  produces  in  Jose  Santos 
Chocano  the  fearless,  proud  apostle  of  Americanism,  who, 
at  the  death  of  Ruben  Dario,  is  accorded  by  many  the  priv- 
ilege of  wielding  that  master's  sceptre.  And  it  is  that 
same  Peru,  which  in  Jose  Maria  Eguren,  now  seems  to  have 
produced  a  new  note  not  only  in  the  national  poetry,  but  in 
Castilian  verse  in  general. 

Jose  Maria  Eguren  is  a  man  of  too  great  modesty. 
He  has  been  kno^vn  as  a  painter  of  no  mean  merit,^  and 
as  a  musician.  As  poet  he  is  new  even  to  his  own  fellow 
citizens  of  Lima,  where  he  has  lived  all  the  years  of  his 
life,  which  must  now  be  some  forty  in  number.  He  is  not 
prolific,  and  his  poetry,  again  unlike  that  of  his  famous 
countrymen,  does  not  produce  the  impression  of  having 
poured  forth  like  lines  of  lava  from  a  volcano  of  inspira- 
tion. But  despite  his  modesty  he  has  his  pride — an  artistic 
pride,  and  one  that  frankly  abhors  the  appeal  to  the  crowd. 
In  this  unshakable  devotion  to  his  conception  of  art  there 

'  For  an  article  upon  Eguren  as  a  painter,  with  illustrations  of  his  can- 
vases, see  Variedadcs  (Lima,  Peru),  issue  of  June  21,  1919.  The  article  is 
by  Ttofilo  Castillo. 


4 


293      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

is  something  noble,  even  if  at  times,  in  his  verse,  it  tends 
toward  a  certain  ultra-refined  complexity.  Some  artists 
fear  the  crowd;  some  detest  it;  others  ignore  it.  In  all 
these  attitudes  there  is  more  than  a  trace  of  justice.  A 
certain  fear  of  the  masses  will  act,  upon  some  artists,  as  a 
wholesome  corrective  for  their  tendency  toward  abtruseness 
and  obscurity — an  obscurity  often  due,  it  may  be  suggested, 
to  the  absence  of  any  large  number  to  whom  the  ideas  must 
be  made  intelligible.  A  detestation  of  the  crowd  is,  as 
often  as  not,  merely  a  perverted  form  of  an  intense  love  for 
art  itself,  and,  like  many  excesses,  to  be  forgiven  for  the 
intense  idealism  at  its  root.  Ignoring  the  crowd  is  per- 
haps, taking  it  by  and  large,  the  best  attitude  for  the  artist 
to  assume;  here  neither  fear  nor  hatred  will  operate  to  de- 
stroy the  essential  humanity  of  the  work,  while  the  man 
in  the  artist  will  perforce  strike  some  note  in  consonance 
with  the  artist  in  all  men.  In  economic  and  industrial 
life  the  course  of  betterment  may,  as  we  have  been  told, 
have  to  work  its  way  from  the  bottom  upwards.  In  art 
it  will  have  to  be  the  other  way  round,  if  any  way  at  all. 
There  may  be  safety  in  numbers,  but  art  does  not  travel 
in  crowds. 

In  other  words,  we  are  wrong  if  we  insist  upon  demol- 
ishing the  ivory  tower.  That  is  the  only  kind  of  place  in 
which  some  spirits  can  labor.  And  if  their  labors  bring 
us  a  richer  life,  why  need  we  be  concerned  with  the  place 
of  birth?  Eguren  is  an  ivory- tower  spirit.  Something  of 
the  pallor  of  his  own  countenance  has  crept  into  his  verses, 
yet  something  of  his  ardent  inner  self,  and  sometliing  of 
the  color  of  his  own  canvases  there  is,  too.  And  if  he 
is  a  bad  reader  of  his  own  works,  they  are  there  in  print 


JOSE  MARIA  EGUREN  299 

for  us  to  read  for  our  own  pleasure.  "When  he  reads  his 
compositions — and  they  are  very  badly  read,"  writes  Kn- 
riijue  Carrillo  in  his  introduction  to  Eguren's  collection  nl" 
verse  called  La  Cancion  dc  Las  Figuras,  "lie  int(^rriipls 
himseir  and  asks,  very  timidly,  witli  a  surprising  and  tuuch- 
ing  modesty,  'Do  you  like  it?  Do  you  think  it's  all  right?' 
Yes,  my  poor,  beloved  poet,  we  like  it  exceedingly  well, 
we  are  captivated  and  enraptured  by  die  soulful  music  that 
so  sweetly  llowers  from  its  tenuous  and  undulating  rhythms. 
And  what  a  splendid  example  you  present  in  your  retire- 
ment, proud  and  humble  at  the  same  time,  in  the  midst  of 
tlie  grotesque  array  of  elephantine  vanities  that  we  are 
forced  to  behold  in  our  intellectual  circles!"  The  poet's 
bad  reading  of  his  own  verses  is  a  very  human  touch;  I  be- 
lieve it  was  the  Russian  composer,  Chaikovsky,  who  more 
than  once  spoiled  his  orchestral  compositions  by  conducting 
them.  Creative  and  intrepretative  genius  are  not  always 
close  companions.  One  thing  about  Eguren's  preferences 
may  prove  difficult  to  understand:  his  great  predilection  for 
Mendelssohn's  music.  Outwardly,  at  least,  there  is  no  re- 
semblance between  the  poetry  of  the  one  and  the  music  of 
the  other.  Mendelssohn  is  clear,  direct,  often  simple  and 
always  sweet,  with  a  sweetness  tliat  in  these  latter  days  of 
militant  cacophony  has  unjustly  been  dismissed  as  being 
iiirrely  sugary  and  insubstantial.     Eguren  is  rarely  direct 

clear;  his  sweetness  is  not  often  companioned  by  sim- 
plicity as  it  is  understood  in  poetry. 

Eguren,  in  the  words  of  the  discerning  young  Peruvian 
critic  Pedro  S.  Zulen,  is  a  neosymbolist.  Speaking  of 
Eguren's  first  book,  SimboUcas,  which  came  out  in  1911, 
Zulen  wrote,  upon  its  appearance,  "Never  have  we  listened 


300       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

to  a  genre  like  that  of  Simbolicas,  which  now  comes  to 
initiate  a  new  tendency  in  our  national  poetry,  and  per- 
haps a  new  conception  of  symbolism  in  poetry  itself." 
Zulen  discerns  in  Eguren  two  symbolisms;  that  of  the  sep- 
arate images  and  that  of  their  combination.  That  of  the 
separate  images  is  not  new  in  poetry,  although  Eguren 
brings  his  personal  contribution  to  the  style;  Eguren's 
novel  addition,  according  to  Zulen,  consists  in  a  synthesis 
of  the  various  images.  "Each  composition  of  Eguren's  is 
an  entire  block  of  ideas  and  of  images,  concrete  and  syn- 
thetic in  the  highest  degree.  His  personality  plays  no 
part;  it  is  like  the  camera,  unconscious  of  tlie  fact  that  it 
is  producing  images;  his  symbol  is  something  that  lives 
of  itself,  possessing  an  independent  existence.  And  in 
Eguren  there  is  to  be  admired  not  only  the  wealth  of  his 
spirit  in  creative  imagination.  There  is  in  him  not  only 
the  sincere  soul,  the  etliical  integrity  that  was  for  Carlyle 
one  of  the  conditions  that  he  indicated  for  the  poet  if  he 
wishes  to  rise  to  something  like  a  kind  of  earthly  deity, 
but  also  the  other  condition  laid  down  by  the  celebrated 
English  Puritan,  as  Taine  called  him:  to  think  musically." 

Viewed  from  this  standpoint,  Eguren  represents  a  step 
away  from  Spanish-American  modernism. 

To  some  of  his  countrymen  indeed,  Eguren  represents 
the  newest  aspect  of  this  important  movement.  His  sym- 
bolism is  a  multiple  connotation  of  words,  sounds  and 
sense.  What  he  has  brought  to  Peruvian  poetry  he  has,  in 
a  way,  brought  to  Spanish- American  poetry  as  a  whole;  a 
more  suggestive,  perturbing  and  more  intimate  note — the 
sensation  of  the  mystery  of  silent  lives,  of  the  tragedy  of 
daily  existence,  in  the  manner  of  Maeterlinck,  and  the 


JOSE  MARIA  EGUREN  301 

musical  transposition  of  the  landscape.  "Jose  Maria 
Eguren,"  says  Carrillo,  "has  hen  the  Moses  who  made 
these  two  fresh  streams  spring  from  tlie  rock."  Carrillo's 
praise  goes  farther  still.  "I  maintain,"  he  asserts,  after 
noting  some  ol  the  poetic  inllucnces  that  have  played  upon 
his  poet,  and  averring  tliat  he  does  not  claim  for  Eguren 
the  iounilation  of  a  new  poetic  art,  ''that  none  hefore  him 
in  (South)  America  has  sung  as  he  does." 

Just  how  diverse  have  been  the  influences  undergone  by 
Eguren  may  be  gathered  from  names  such  as  our  own  Poe, 
Mallarme,  Verlaine,  Francis  Jammes  and  Ruben  Dario. 
Krom  influences  such  as  these,  plus  his  own  personality, 
iN-hich  may  not  figure  visibly  in  his  work  but  which  is  tliere 
just  tlie  same,  as  it  is  in  the  works  of  all  significant  artists, 
Eguren  has  distilled  a  symbolic  style  that  merges  music 
md  mystery  with  meanings  that  must  be  sought.  And 
lerein  lies  the  certainty  tliat  he  will  never  be  a  popular 
3oet.  Thus  far  he  has  been  received  either  with  open 
irms,  by  an  enthusiastic  few,  or  by  ill-worded  hostility  on 
he  part  of  certain  critics  who  do  not  even  concede  him  the 
ight  to  be  called  poet.  Eguren  belongs  to  that  circle  of  \J 
ipirits  who  have  been  named  poets'  poets.  He  either 
trikes  a  responsive  note  in  you  or  he  does  not.  If  you 
ire  endowed  witli  a  capacity  lor  mystic  moods  (not  neces- 
arily  a  mystic  philosophy)  you  will  find  durable  pleasure 
n  such  poems  as  El  Dios  Cansado  (The  Weary  God),  El 
lios  de  la  Centella  (The  God  of  the  Lightning  Flash),  El 
^.uarto  Cerrado  (The  Closed  Room)  and  Los  Robles  (The 
)ak  Trees). 

'  Eguren's  poetry  possesses  a  delicate,  vibrating  sensitive- 
less  to  the  connotations  of  colors  and  sounds  and,  at  its 


302       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

best,  a  rare  flavor  which,  like  a  precious  attar,  is  extremely 
volatile.  This  is  well  illustrated  by  the  poem  entitled  Las 
Torres  (The  Towers),  or  in  Los  Reyes  Rojos  (The  Red 
Kings).  Those  who  have  taken  delight  in  watching  the 
changing  aspects  of  a  scene  under  the  various  colors  that 
play  upon  it  from  sunrise  to  sunset  will  have  seen  all  that 
the  poet  brings  to  them  in  his  fantastic  conception  of  the 
distant  towers  that  rise  to  rage,  in  the  golden,  flaming  sun- 
beams, like  monarchs  in  battle,  that  wound  each  other  in 
the  red  glow  of  sundown  and  sink  to  ashes  in  the  black 
of  night. 

Brunas  lejanias  .  .  .; 

batallan  las  torres 

presentando 

siluetas  enormes. 

Aureas  lejanias  .  .  .; 
las  torres  monarcas 
se  confunden 
en  sus  iras  llamas. 

Rojas  lejanias  .  .  .; 

se  hieran  las  torres; 

purpurados 

se  oyen  sus  clamores. 

Negras  lejanias  .  .  .; 

hora  cenientas 

se  obscurecen 

jay,  las  torres  muertas! 

Similarly  in  the  poem  that  is  called,  too  modestly,  by 
the  almost  anonymous  title  "Lied  III,"  Eguren  evokes  the' 
magic  of  the  deep  that  hovers  over  all  coasts  within  sight 


JOSE  \L\RIA  EGl'REN  30:i 

of  vvhicli  vessels  ami  their  brave  crews  have  sunk  into  the 
irnis  of  Neptune's  daughters.  Tlie  conception  of  the 
sunken  ships  rising  from  their  graves  at  the  sound  of  the 
bell  upon  the  coast,  and  then  sinking  back  again  into  ""the 
Pantheon  of  the  seas"  (is  that  not  a  beautiful  and  memor- 
ible  metaphor?)  is  embodied  in  verse  of  most  musical 
Dlasticity;  there  is  an  ebb  and  flow  to  the  five  short  stanzas 
[hat  accords  most  artistically  with  tlie  rising  of  the  ships  to 
ihe  call  of  the  bell  and  their  return  to  their  watery  homes. 

En  la  costa  brava 
suena  la  campana, 
llamando  a  los  antiguos 
bajeles  sumergidos. 

Y  con  tamiz  celeste 
y  al  luminar  e  hielo, 
pasan  trisleniente 
los  bajeles  muertos. 

Carcomidos,  flavos, 
se  acercan  vagando  .  .  . 
y  por  las  luces  dejan 
obscurosas  estelas. 

Con  su  lenguage  incierto 
parece  que  sollozan, 
a  la  voz  de  invierno, 
preterida  historia. 

En  la  costa  brava 
suena  la  campana, 
y  se  vuelvan  las  naves 
al  panteon  de  los  mares. 

It  is  one  of  the  paradoxes  of  art  that,  the  more  personal 


304       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

a  poet  is,  the  less  individuality  he  allows  his  reader  in  the 
interpretation  of  his  work;  while  the  less  personal  the  crea- 
tive artist  is  in  his  style,  the  greater  play  of  interpretative 
personality  the  reader  himself  may  enjoy  once  he  has  culti- 
vated a  taste  for  the  poet.  Providing,  of  course,  the  poet  is 
worth  cultivating.  And  on  that  score,  I,  for  one,  am  pretty 
well  determined  in  Eguren's  favor.  He  is  himself.  He 
does  not  affect  the  sonorous  bugle  blasts  of  Chocano  merely 
because  Chocano,  doing  this  style  so  well,  has  found  im- 
mense favor.  For  that  reason,  if  you  come  to  him  after  a 
fairly  wide  reading  of  Chocano  you  are  apt  to  feel  yourself 
in  rather  rare  atmosphere,  and  find  it  hard,  at  first,  to  catcl: 
your  poetic  breatli,  so  to  speak.  Nor  will  you  find  ir 
Eguren  the  cosmopolitan  versatility  of  Dario,  or  the  elegiac 
sentimentality  of  Gutierrez  Najera.  You  will  find  little 
too,  suprisingly  little,  of  love. 

This  is  true  not  only  of  Eguren,  but  of  others  of  th< 
younger  poets.  Listen,  for  instance,  to  this  from  the  notec 
Spanish  critic  Miguel  de  Unamuno,  in  his  foreword  t( 
the  poetry  of  Jose  Asuncion  Silva.  I  quote  the  importan 
passage  because  it  throws  light  not  only  upon  Spanish 
American  poetry  of  the  past  two  decades,  but  also  is  in 
structive  in  a  consideration  of  our  own  chief  poetic  spirits 

"Silva  is  not  an  erotic  poet;  strictly  speaking,  none  o 
the  greatest  poets  is.  And  these  great  poets,  wlio  have  nc 
made  of  love  for  woman  either  the  only  or  even  the  cer 
tral  sentiment  of  life,  are  those  who  have  sung  the  love  c 
her  with  the  greatest  power,  originality  and  even  intensit 
...  It  has  been  said  that  for  those  who  love  but  little- 
referring  to  love  of  woman — that  love  fills  their  lives  a 
most  completely,  whilst  in  those  who  love  deeply,  love  is,J 


JOSE  MARIA  EGURKN  305 

sul)ordinnt(*  and  ."^ocoiulary  tiling.  Nor  is  this  a  paradox 
but  ratlior  a  question  of  spiritual  capacity.  The  latter  can 
love  three  times  as  intensely  as  the  former  and  nevertheless 
accord  to  love  but  a  third  of  the  spirit.  .  .  ."'  After  speak- 
ing of  the  tendency  of  young  writers  to  imagine  that  tlu* 
eyes  of  their  beloved  are  the  stars  about  which  the  uni- 
■  verse  revolves  Unamuno  continues:     "Nevertheless  it   is 

•  not  tlie  beauty  of  Helen,  but  the  wrath  of  Achilles  that  is 
the  basis  of  the  Iliad :  nor  is  Beatrice,  after  all,  more  than 

a  pretext  for  tiie  Divine  Comedy,  nor  is  love  the  great  pivot      y^ 
'  of  Shakespeare's  tragedies,  nor  is  Dulcinea  more  than  a 

spectre  in  the  Quijote,  nor  Gretchen  more  than  an  episode 

in  Faust.  .  .  .  When,  in  the  literature  of  a  people  there  is 
'  a  tendency  to  sing  before  all  and  above  all  of  woman  for 

her  own  sake,  it  is  a  sign  that  people  is  becoming  enervated 

and  lowering  itself,  even  in  love," 
'      Whetlier  from  some  such  reasons  as  Unamuno  gives  in 

•  the  foregoing  statement,  or  whether  because  the  love  ele- 
'  ment  in  Eguren's  art  finds  its  vent  in  music  and  painting, 
'  his  poetry  thus  far  is  singularly  free  of  anything  more 
'  than  flashes  of  the  grand  passion.  Nor  is  it  necessary  to 
'agree  to  Unamuno's  astoundingly  sweeping  statement  to 

see  his  point. 
'      This  newest  of  the  symbolists  is  a  highly  cultured  spirit, 

too  refined  for  vulgar  conquests,  yet  too  sensitive  in  taste 

to  yield  to  super-aesthetic  extravagances  of  conception  or  ex- 
'pression.     At  his  best  he  is  so  welcome  because  of  his 

chaste,  cameo-like  style  and  his  meaningful  visions,  that 
'  one  easily  forgives  him  the  higher  flights,  in  which  it  is  hard 
'to  follow  him.     Unless  one  is  case-hardened  in  tlie  tenets  "^ 

of  a  particular  poetic  cult  (a  most  unpoetic  attitude  towards 


306       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

poetry,  and  a  most  unartistic,  if  not  inartistic,  attitude  to- 
ward art  in  general)  he  will  not  deny  Eguren  a  niche  in 
the  gallery  of  significant  contemporary  poets.  Spanish 
America  should  hear  more  of  him,  and  Spain,  too. 


CHAPTER  VI 

RUFINO  BLANCO-FOMBONA 
1874^) 

I       Because    I   admire   his   versatility   greatly,   because   I 

i  wish  him  many  years  of  fruitful  labor,  in  which  he  may 
produce  an  unending  succession  of  spirited  works,  inci- 
dentally learning,  too,  that  not  all  that  is  of  the  United 
States  is  necessarily  despicable  or  untrustworthy,  and  that 
tliere  is  a  distinction  between  a  nation  a^  a  whole  and  cer- 
tain predatory  interests  within  it, — because  whatever  his 
faults  may  be  he  is  one  of  the  most  valiant  and  sincere 
spirits  writing  in  Europe  today,  I  choose  to  begin  this  study 
of  Don  Rufmo  Blanco-Fombona  with  the  necrological  no- 
tice of  himself  which  he  writes  at  the  end  of  his  kaleido- 

;  scopic  Ldmpara  de  Aladino, — Aladdin's  Lamp.  For 
surely  no  epitaph  more  belied  the  death  it  was  supposed 
to  chronicle.  How  throbbing  with  life  it  is,  and  how  char- 
acteristic of  the  man  who  wrote  it!  How  full  of  self-reve- 
lation and  self-understanding,  of  passion  and  irony.  Its 
epigraph:     Much  ado  about  nothing.     Its  substance: 

'"I  would  desire,  on  dying,  to  inspire  an  obituary  notice 
of  the  following  style: 
-^"This  man,  like  one  beloved  of  the  gods,  died  young. 

iHe  knew  how  to  love  and  to  hate  with  all  his  heart.  He 
loved  fields,  rivers,  fountains;  he  loved  good  wine,  he  loved 

307 


308       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

marble,  steel,  gold;  he  loved  nubile  women  and  beautiful 
verses.  He  despised  the  timorous,  the  presumptuous  and 
the  mediocre.  He  hated  traitors,  hypocrites,  calumniators, 
venal  spirits,  eunuchs,  servile  souls.  He  was  content  never 
to  read  the  manufacturers  of  trashy  literature.  In  the 
midst  of  his  injustice  he  was  just.  He  was  prodigal  in  ap- 
plause for  those  by  whom  he  thought  it  was  merited;  he 
admired  those  whom  he  recognized  as  his  superiors  and 
held  his  equals  in  esteem.  Although  often  he  celebrated 
the  triumph  of  the  claw  and  the  impulse  of  the  wing,  he  felt 
compassion  for  the  unfortunate,  even  among  tigers.  He 
attacked  only  the  strong.  He  had  ideals,  and  struggled  and 
made  sacrifices  for  them.  He  carried  disinterestedness  to 
the  limits  of  the  ridiculous.  Only  one  thing  did  he  ever 
refrain  from  giving:  advice.  Not  even  in  his  most  gloomy 
hours  was  there  lacking,  from  near  or  far,  the  friendly 
voice  and  heart  of  some  woman.  It  is  not  kno^vn  whether 
he  was  moral  or  immoral  or  amoral;  but  he  placed  beauty 
and  truth, — ^his  truth, — above  all.  He  enjoyed  and  suf- 
fered much,  spiritually  atid  physically.  He  knew  the 
world  and  desired  everybody  to  know  him.  Neither  an- 
archistic nor  acratic,  he  believed  that  intelligence  should 
govern  peoples.  As  for  art,  he  believed  ever  that  one 
could  and  should  be  original,  not  forgetting  that  nihil 
novum  sub  sole.  His  life  was  illogical.  His  thought  was 
contradictory.  His  one  unchanging  attribute  was  his  sin- 
cerity, both  in  feeling  and  thought.  Never  did  a  lie  sully 
his  lips  or  his  pen.  He  never  feared  the  trutli  or  the  con- 
sequences it  entailed.  Therefore  he  faced  homicidal  dag- 
gers; therefore  he  suffered  long  incarcerations  and  longer 
exiles.     He  preached  liberty  by  example ;  he  was  free.     He 


RUFINO  BLANCO-FOMBONA  309 

was  a  soul  of  the  sixteenth  century  and  a  man  of  the 
twentieth. 

"He  rests  in  peace  for  tlie  first  time.  May  the  earth, 
wiiieh  he  loved,  be  propitious  to  him." 

There,  in  a  few  hundred  words,  you  have  the  auto- 
portrait  of  one  of  tlie  foremost  Spanish-American  figures 
of  today, — a  peculiarly  human  figure,  poet  in  action  as 
well  as  in  thought,  complex  in  soul  as  well  as  accomplish- 
ment, very  nuieh  of  the  present,  not  a  little  of  the  past,  and 
just  as  much  of  the  future.  His  life  is  full  of  errors,  but 
no  less  replete  with  glory;  he  has  lived  every  moment 
and  lived  it  hard;  he  has  often  been  wrong,  but  never 
wittingly  unjust.  Friend  and  foe  alike  know  where  he 
stands;  he  is  utterly  sincere.  If,  mistaking  the  attitude  of 
a  few  for  the  spirit  of  a  nation,  he  has  been  sadistically 
harsh  with  the  United  States,  he  has  been  no  less  stringent 
and  vitriolic  with  his  native  and  beloved  Venezuela;  so 
passionate  is  he  in  his  adoration  of  justice  and  its  human 
symbols,  that  he  even  waxes  unjust  in  its  defense.  His 
gushing  energy  has  overflowed  into  countless  channels,  yet 
out  of  the  turbulent  waters  emerges  a  clear  stream  of  virile 
manliood  flowing  onward  toward  a  new  and  better  day. 


The  poet,  critic,  novelist,  sociologist  and  polemist  was 

bom  on  June  17,  1871,  in  the  city  of  Caracas,  Venezuela. 

On  his  father's  side  he  comes  of  old  Spanish  aristocratic 

stock;   his  maternal    line   is   little   less   distinguished,   his 

;  grandfather,   D.   Evaristo  Fombona,   having   founded   the 

I  Venezuelan   Academy  of  Languages,  and  having  been   a 

:  correspondent  of  the  Royal  Spanish  Academy  and  coun- 


310      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

cillor  of  the  Spanish  legation  in  Caracas.  This  personage 
married  a  daughter  of  one  of  the  chief  fighters  in  the  war 
for  Venezuela's  independence — a  struggle  which,  Blanco- 
Fombona  points  out,  was  fiercer  and  more  determined  there 
than  anywhere  else  on  the  continent — thus  bringing  revolu- 
tionary blood  into  the  family  veins. 

The  mingling  of  the  aristocratic  and  the  insurrecto  strains 
is  markedly  evident  in  our  author.  He  has  himself  told 
us,  in  his  whimsical  necrological  note,  that  he  has  the  soul 
of  the  sixteenth  century,  and  this  is  no  mere  metaphor. 
The  many  escapades  of  his  early  days,  the  hot-tempered 
spirit  of  his  countless  imbroglios  in  South  America  and  in 
Europe  alike,  the  adventuresome  wanderlust  that  has  car- 
ried him  from  prisons  to  virgin  forests,  from  forests  to 
the  effete  civilization  of  contemporary  European  capitals, 
all  attest  the  hidalgo,  quick  to  resent  attacks,  fancied  or 
real,  quick  to  recognize  bravery,  friendly  or  hostile,  and 
scornful  of  life  when  honor  is  at  stake.  On  the  other  hand 
that  hidalgoesque  spirit  is  tempered  by  a  passionate  revolt 
against  anything  that  resembles  injustice.  Blanco-Fom- 
bona  is  capable  of  declaring  the  exploited  Indian  of  the 
Orinoco  far  superior  to  his  white  exploiters;  race  plays  no 
part  in  his  prejudices;  he  has,  as  we  have  seen,  attacked 
his  own  country  as  acrimoniously  as  ours, — in  each  case 
because  he  has  seen  a  wrong  to  be  righted.  We  are  nol 
now  concerned  with  the  justice  of  his  views,  but  with  the 
white-heat  sincerity  of  his  motive.  It  may  not  be  urging 
the  point  too  far  to  suggest  that  the  salient  traits  of  Blanco- 
Fombona's  character  are  derived  from  the  antagonism 
between  the  two  hostile  strains  in  his  blood, — an  antagon- 
ism which  seems  today  to  be  resolving  into  something  like 


RUFINO  BLANCO-FOMHONA  311 

harmony.  Not  liiat  Blaiico-Fomliona  has  ronouiiccd  his 
youth;  hut  from  some  of  his  passages  one  may  gather  lliat 
he  is  glad  it  has  past.  On  the  evidtMicc  of  his  friend  and 
critic  Gonzah^z-Rhinco,  we  learn  that  today  Blanco-Foin- 
l)ona  is  a  tranquil  man,  "as  far  as  that  is  possihle,"  husy 
with  his  duties  as  directing  head  of  the  Editorial-America, 
a  publishing  house  that  makes  a  specialty  of  issuing  notable 
works  by  Spanish  Americans;  "a  fine  sefior  who  does  not 
even  go  out  at  night;  a  man  that  shuns  all  noise;  a  littera- 
teur who  deliberately  and  insistently  flees  every  literary 
gatliering;  a  good  bourgeois,  I  repeat,  who  has  his  secre- 
tary and  his  book-keeper;  a  serious  gentleman,  moderate, 
courteous,  who  thinks  only  of  olhee  and  home,  and  who  may 
be  seen  mornings  on  horseback  in  the  suburbs  of  Madrid  or 
afternoons  in  the  Library  or  the  Conference  Hall  of  the 
Ateneo.  .  .  .  None  would  imagine  that  this  bourgeois,  an 
inhabitant  of  Madrid,  was  the  same  as  the  'caballero  ator- 
bellinado'  of  whom  Dario  spoke;  the  man  of  duels,  travels, 
women  and  cosmopolitan  escapades;  the  poet  of  Pequena 
opera  lirica,  the  author  of  the  lyric  prose  entitled  Mas  alia 
de  los  horizontesJl  ^ 

At  tlie  age  of  eighteen  Blanco-Fombona  is  found  en- 
rolled as  a  volunteer  in  the  revolution  against  President 
Andueza,  who  precipitated  the  outbreak  by  trying  to  pro- 
long his  term  in  office  after  it  had  expired.  Upon  the  suc- 
cessful outcome  of  the  revolution,  during  which  he  won 
his  way  from  a  position  as  private  to  that  of  aide  to  general 
Antonio  Fernandez,  Blanco-Foml)ona  left  for  the  United 
States,  where  he  remained  for  two  years,  devoting  himself 

^  Andres      Gonzalez-Bianco.     Escritores      Representativos      dc      America. 
Madrid.  1917.     Pages  86-87. 


312      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

to  a  rigorous  program  of  self-instruction.  And  here  be- 
gins his  career  of  roistering  and  antipathy  to  our  country; 
the  first  would  seem  to  have  subsided,  but  the  second  is  still 
active.  It  is,  let  us  say  at  once,  a  worthy  opposition  that 
must  be  met,  not  pushed  aside.  Blanco-Fombona  is  list- 
ened to  in  Europe  and  in  Spanish  America.  He  must  be 
heard  here.  For  the  present  let  it  be  sufficient  to  say  that 
he  is  alive  to  the  better  aspects  of  the  United  States,  having 
translated  Prof.  Shepherd's  book  on  Latin  America  into 
Spanish;  his  animosity  is  the  mistaken  transference  to  an 
entire  people  of  the  dislike  he  feels, — with  more  or  less 
justice,  we  must  admit — for  certain  policies  fostered  by  cer- 
tain administrations.  But  how  wrong  to  erect  this  motive 
into  an  unthinking  hatred  of  an  entire  republic, — a  peo- 
ple that  led  the  way  for  Spanish  America  in  shaking  off 
the  fetters  of  monarchial  oppression,  and  later,  in  doing 
away  with  black  slavery!  How  puerile,  too,  is  Gonzalez- 
Blanco's  glorification  of  Blanco-Fombona's  brawl  upon 
the  streets  of  New  York  into  a  deed  of  derring-do!  " 

2  Gonzalez-Bianco.  Op.  cit.,  88-89.  The  Spanish  critic,  fairly  safe  as 
an  enthusiastic  guide  to  contemporary  literature  in  Spain  and  Spanish 
America,  becomes  untrustworthy  when  he  enters  the  domains  of  national 
character.  Take,  for  a  good  example,  his  note  on  the  escapade  referred 
to.  "I  have  had  in  my  hands,"  he  says,  ''the  newspaper  from  New  York 
in  which  the  event  is  reported,  and  (italics  mine)  nothing  can  give  a  better 
idea  of  the  cowardice  of  the  yankees  before  a  determined  man,  in  the  mid- 
dle of  the  street,  ivith  a  cane  in  his  hand,"  whereupon  he  proceeds  to  tell 
how  our  author  struck  out  right  and  left  and  vanquished — one  would  imag- 
ine— the  United  States!  Shades  of  logic  and  Gonzalez-Blanco's  classical 
education!  So  this  is  what  proves  "yankee  cowardice"!  Hardly.  Any 
more  than  Gonzalez-Blanco's  words  should  accuse  all  Spanish  writers  of 
shallow  reasoning. 

Blanco-Fombona  was  capable  of  quarreling  even  with  such  close  friends 
as  Dario  and  Enrique  Gomez-Carrillo,  in  a  Parisian  cafe.  They  once 
happened  to  be  discussing  the  smaller  nationalities  of  Spanish  America  and 
our  author  did  not  like  the  supercilious  attitude   adopted   by  his  friends. 


RIJFINO  BLANCO-FOMBONA  313 

In  1899  we  fiiul  Blaiu-o-Foinhoiia  back,  in  (Caracas,  vvhcro 
his  first  book  is  publisliod,  hall'  in  prose,  luilf  in  verse,  some- 
what after  the  manner  of  Dario's  Azul.  .  .  .  But  il  was 
not  like  our  author  to  keep  quiet  for  lonp;;  he  must  ne«;(l.s 
engage  in  a  duel  and  llee  back  to  the  despised  Liiited 
States,  which  has  so  often  been  the  harbor  of  refuge  for 
Spanish-American  revolutionists.  Variations  of  his  coun- 
try's political  complexion  brought  liim  varied  rewards.  In 
1901  we  discover  him  as  Secretary-General  of  the  stale  of 
Zulia,  one  of  Venezuela's  federal  departments.  More 
trouble,  in  which  Blanco-Fombona,  forced  to  defend  him- 
self, killed  one  man  and  wounded  two  others  of  his  assail- 
ants. F^or  a  while  he  was  imprisoned,  and  when  freed  of 
the  charge,  was  escorted  to  a  church  of  Maracaibo,  where 
the  populace  sent  up  thanks  to  the  Lord  for  his  safe  deliv- 
er)'. \\  idi  his  consulship  to  Amsterdam  in  1902,  and  the 
frequent  trips  to  Paris  which  tliis  made  possible,  came  an- 
other string  of  duels.  We  need  not  enter  into  particulars. 
Who  gets  into  so  many  quarrels  in  so  many  parts  of  the 
.  world  cannot  always  be   right.     The  truth  must  be  that 

•  young  Blanco-Fombona  was  hasty,  arrogant,  quarrelsome, 
too  ready  for  trouble. 

Yet  this  should  not  mean  that  he  was  always  in  the  wrong. 
His  next  charge,  which  carried  him  to  the  Territorio  Ama- 

Whereupon.  somewhat  overladen  with  liquor  Blanco-Fombona  burst  into 
patriotic  eloquence:  "You  both  live  on  that  America  which  you  scorn, 
while  this  country  that  you  adore  (France)  wouldn't  give  you  enough  to 
'.  buy  a  hat  with.  You,  Carrillo,  are  consul  from  your  country;  you.  Darfo, 
aspire  to  be  consul  from  yours..  Over  there  you're  somebody;  here  you  are 

•  nobody.     There  you   are   Ruben   Dario   and   Gomez  Carrillo;   here   you   are 
I  number   10  or  numl>er  2.5  of  the  hotel.     You  are,   at   bottom,   Phili'tint-s. 

bourgeois;  you  love  Paris.  France,  Europe;  power,  wealth,  established 
things.  Not  I.  I  love  America,— our  America,  even  though  it  be  poor,  In- 
dian, savage,  lousy,  leprous^  I  love  it.  .  .  ." 


314      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

zons,  a  virgin  department  comprising  between  a  sixth  and  a 
fifth  of  Venezuela,  bordering  upon  parts  of  Brazil  and  Co- 
lombia, reveals  him  in  the  light  of  a  brave  pioneer.  Sent 
thither  as  governor,  he  was  through  motives  he  has  not  yet 
amplified  upon,  subjected  to  an  attempt  at  assassination, 
in  which  his  enemies  came  out  second  best.'^ 

Blanco-Fombona's  European  residence,  tlien,  has  for 
background  a  violent  life  of  revolution,  adventure  and  love- 
making  in  which  poetry  seems  to  be  fused  with  action.  The 
primitive  man  mingles  strangely  with  the  man  of  culture, 
— the  Spanish  hidalgo  with  the  Venezuelan  patriot.  Some- 
what like  Dario,  he  has  become  legendary  in  his  own  day. 
Poems  are  inscribed  to  him, — one  by  the  well-known  Ar- 
gentine poet  Leopoldo  Diaz,  of  whose  work  Blanco-Fom- 
bona  has  written  an  illuminating  exposition.  He  has  been 
likened,  in  one  of  Dario's  finest  bits  of  prose,  to  a  denizen 
of  the  Italy  of  Cardinal  de  Ferrar,  of  Benvenuto  Cellini. 
(Diaz's  sonnet  places  him  in  the  same  company) ;  yet  Gon- 
zalez-Bianco is  right  in  rejecting  the  imputation  of  an 
amoralism  of  the  Renaissance  in  favor  of  a  more  constant, 
positive  guiding  principle.  His  multifarious  life  has  a 
great  purpose  and  he  has  given  himself  unstintingly  to  it. 
Not  for  him  tlie  sterility  of  complacent,  negative  virtue; 
life  and  poetry  alike  to  him  have  meant  action.  He  has 
written,  and  written  often,  the  Word,  but  his  words  have 
flowered  from  tlie  Deed.  Would  you  understand  the  man 
with  anything  like  completeness  you  must  know  his  Bolivar- 
olatry, — his   intense  worship   of   die   Great  Liberator,  to 

3  For  a  valuable  record  of  this  period  read,  in  El  Ldmpara  de  Aladino 
(Madrid,  1915)  the  section  entitled  ''Viaje  de  Alto  Orinoco,"  pages  33j 
to  393. 


RUFINO  BLANCO-FOMBONA  315 

wIkwii  he  lias  trioci  to  he  true  \sh\i  pen  ami  sword.      Has  our 
own  W  ashiiigtoii  inspired  so  whole-souled  a  (le\H)tion? 

Blanco-Fombona,  then,  is  peculiarly  hiinself  in  word 
and  deed.  Like  those  who  do  nuieh,  lie  has  conunitted 
many  an  error,  but  the  good  far  outweighs  the  bad.  He  is 
still  a  young  man,  and  from  his  writings  may  be  gleaned, 
not  only  a  ile(>{)  understanding  of  the  remarkable  man  him- 
self, but  a  better  comprehension  of  the  new  continental 
spirit  that  is  forming  in  Spanish  America.  Since  he  him- 
self began  as  a  poet,  let  us  first  consider  him  in  lliat  light, 
after^vards  taking  up  his  accomplishments  in  the  fields  of 
criticism,  sociology,  politics  and  fiction. 

n 

It  is  significant  that  Blanco-Fombona's  first  production 
was  a  poem  entitled  Potria,  and  as  irony  would  have  it,  the 
poem,  which  received  the  prize  in  competition  with  other 
verses  written  upon  the  subject  of  Sucre's  centenary,  was 

I  indited  in  Philadelphia,  where  he  was  then  carrying  on  his 
studies.  "The  generation  to  which  I  belong,"  he  has  in- 
formed us  in  his  interesting  ''Historia  de  Libros" (Z,a'm/;«ra 

,  de  Aladino)  was  bom  into  literary  life  toward  1893.  A 
hundred  rose  buds  opened  to  the  same  dawn.  In  1893  I 
was  living  in  Philadelphia,  where  I  was  studying,  and 
where  I  wrote  practically  in  secret,  and  whence  I  sent  to  a 
contest,  originating  in  Coro  (1894)  on  the  occasion  of 
Sucre's  centenary,  a  poem:  Patria,  flaming  with  youth  and 
enthusiasm,  in  the  lyric-epic  vein.  The  very  fact  that  I 
participated  in  a  contest  shows  how  young  I  must  have 
been;  I  was,  in  fact,  but  twenty  years  old.  ...  I  won  tlie 
prize  and  acquired  a  reputation  ...   in  Coro."     It  seems. 


316       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

then,  that  Blanco-Fombona  started  on  much  the  same  path 
as  Chocano,  with  a  prize  for  a  lyric-epic  poem  exalting 
national  pride.  Patria  is  today  unprocurable,  nor  does 
the  author  seem  desirous  of  resuscitating  the  poetic  corpse. 
His  first  book  was  the  collection  of  verse  and  prose  entitled 
Trovadores  y  Trovas  (1899).  It  has  likewise  fallen  out  of 
print  and  is  generally  recognized  as  a  juvenile  performance. 
"Already,"  says  Gonzalez-Bianco,  "one  may  discern  a  con- 
stant search  for  originality  in  expression  and  feeling, — an 
originality  which  is  attested  by  the  recherche  metres  and 
an  avoidance  of  the  spontaneous  feelings  that  move  all  poets 
at  that  age."  Manuel  Diaz  Rodriguez,  now  a  recognized 
essayist  and  novelist — one  of  the  finest  prose  artists  Spanish 
America  has  produced  in  recent  years,  was  at  the  time  of 
the  publication  of  Trovadores  y  Trovas  one  of  the  staff  upon 
the  Cojo  Ilustrado,  and  greeted  his  companion's  work  as 
the  evidence  of  a  nervous,  restless,  sensual,  sad  spirit,  of 
superior  artistic  gifts.  It  was  not  until  1904,  however, 
that  Blanco-Fombona  was  to  give  his  true  measure  as  a 
poet.  It  was  then  that  the  Pequena  opera  lirica  appeared, 
in  Madrid.  It  was  then  diat  the  author  became  conscious 
of  his  art  and  felt  that  he  had  found  his  path,  "which  is  that 
of  simplicity  in  expression,  truth  in  feeling,  literary  sin- 
cerity, life  truly  lived, — in  sum,  without  rhetorical  trim- 
mings or  verbal  tinsel.'/*  The  passage  is  important,  as  are 
a  number  of  others  from  La  Ldmpara  de  Aladino,  for  with 
them,  it  reveals  both  tlie  virtues  and  the  shortcomings  of  his 
poetic  work.  Now  he  tells  us  that  the  poets,  in  truth,  are 
the  great  philosophers,  and  three  pages  later  (Op.  cit.  page 
10)  that  "the  lie  is  the  gift  of  poets,  priests,  kings  and* 
soothsayers.     We    who    are    neither    soothsayers,    kings, 


RUFINO  BLANCO-FOMBONA  317 

priests,  nor  poets  must  content  ourselves  with  the  truth, 
*tlie  humble  truth,'  as  one  of  its  apostles  termed  it."  Do 
you  find  this,  as  you  will  find  much  else  in  his  work,  illog- 
ical, or  inconsistent?  '*Vi  ill  you  say  that  what  1  sec  within 
me,  or  the  spirit  in  which  1  gaze  upon  my  surroundings 
differs  from  one  day  to  the  next?  No  matter!  That  my 
eyes  lack  logic?  No  matter!  I  know  that  they  obey  a 
superior  logic.  One  may  ask  only  the  mental  anil  senti- 
mental sincerity  of  tlie  moment."  This  is  the  substance 
of  Blanco-Fombona's  sincerity;  his  "superior  logic"  is  that 
larger  truth, — not  a  dogma  but  a  becoming, — which  we 
have  seen  in  Emerson  and  in  Rod 6. 

Do  you  wonder  that  he  should  call  Unamuno  Spain's 
greatest  living  poet?  Then  wonder  no  longer  when  you 
read  his  conception  of  life  and  poetry  as  action.  In  the 
secular  parable  La  J  ida  Que  Pasa  (As  Life  Passes  By)  he 
says:  "I  hear  a  voice  that  tells  me:  you  don't  write,  you 
don't  think,  you  don't  dream.  Yours  is  not  an  existence 
of  contemplation  nor  of  fecund  leisure,  nor  of  a  taste  for 
life;  it  is  the  hour  that  flies  in  childish  chatter  or  in  trivial 
love-making.  Your  youth,  your  energy,  wing  away,  with- 
out your  realizing  it,  and  they  fly  off  never  to  return;  they 
fly  off  taking  with  them  the  sap  and  bloom  of  your  Aprils, 
leaving  you — ay! — mouldy,  decayed,  sterile. 

*'And  I  hear  another  voice  which  replies: 

"Complain  not  of  squandering  your  life;  you  are  liv- 
ing it." 

Both  voices  are  Uiose  of  the  autlior.  It  is  one  of  these 
voices  that  later  tells  him  (page  125)  that  the  observer  of 
"Nature  will  discover  nothing  if  he  is  not  something  of  a 
poet;   it   is  the  second   that  whispers  to  him   during  his 


318       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

memorable  trip  to  his  savage  seat  of  government  in  the 
Territorio  Amazonas:  "Can  it  be  true  that  we  poets  are  con- 
demned to  dream,  while  the  strong  labor  and  create?  No, 
no.  The  dream  is  noble,  among  other  things  insofar  as  it 
translates  itself  into  action.  The  greatest  poet  is  he  who 
expresses  himself  in  noble,  transcendental  acts.  Perhaps 
because  of  this,  and  not  alone  because  of  his  golden  speech 
and  his  winged  fancy  Jose  Marti  wrote  of  the  Liberator, 
'The  first  poet  of  America  is  Bolivar.'  "  I  have  before 
remarked  upon  the  similarity  between  Marti's  conception 
of  poetry  and  that  held  by  Blanco-Fombona.  In  Marti's 
sentence  the  conceptions  crystallize  about  the  figure  of  their 
common  idol.  To  them  the  poet  is  a  doer.  In  his  en- 
thusiasm the  poet  may  often  lack  the  spirit  of  justice.  In- 
deed, in  another  of  the  brief  pages  that  adorn  La  Ldmpara 
de  Aladino  (page  445,  on  the  "Equity  of  Poets")  our  author 
recognizes  that  poets  lack  almost  entirely  the  spirit  of  jus- 
tice. Theirs  is  passion,  not  equanimity.  But,  when  they 
are  genuine  poets  and  not  mere  simulators,  they  instil  such 
impetus,  such  fire,  such  passion  into  their  views,  that  what 
they  hate  appears  almost  as  great  as  what  they  love. 
Blanco-Fombona  the  good  hater  is  in  those  words,  even  as 
he  is  in  his  poetry,  his  novels,  his  criticisms.  For  such  as 
he  art  for  art's  sake  seems  a  bootless  renunciation  of  human 
passions.  No  wonder,  then,  that  he  can  write,  in  consider- 
ing his  Pequena  opera  lirica,  that  "more  poetry  is  truly 
produced,  simply  as  a  result  of  their  living,  by  a  Benve^ 
nuto  Cellini  than  by  a  Hugo  Fosn:o1o,  by  a  Heman  Cortex 
than  by  a  Nuiiez  de  Arce,  by  a  Diaz  Miron  than  by  a  Dario 
.  .  .  The  majority  of  poets  are  poets  only  in  verse,  anc 
have  not  lived,  neither  in  love  nor  grief,  danger,  evil,  good 


RUFINO  BLANCO-FOMBONA  319 

I 

^  hate,  audacity,  madness,  an  hour  of  true  poetry.  Every 
1  man  whose  lile  lends  no  inatfrial  l\)r  legeruls  and  poetry 
5  is  a  secondary  man,  even  though  nature  invest  him  witli  the 

•  gifts  of  a  fabulous  goldsmith  and  an  enchanting  rhetoric. 
Dario  is  the  prototype  of  tliis  caj)tivating  poet  of  the  imag- 

•  ination;  prosaic,  nevertheless,  in  existence,  colorless,  meek, 
calculating,  insignificant;  null.     But  Dario   is  not  alone. 

■  A  long  horde  of  metriflers  stretches  out  in  both  directions  of 

■  time — past  and  future — an  entire  horde  that  feels  art 
more  than  life.  Another  vast  multitude  will  prefer  life 
and  will  behold  in  it  the  source  not  only  of  the  beautiful, 

I  but  of  good  and  evil,  which  in  the  hands  of  an  artist  are 
the  proper  material  for  art.     To  this  number  I  belong." 

The  man  of  power  in  life  demands  power  in  poetry.     He 
is  able  to  conceive  only  the  strenuous  life,  to  die  point  of 

I  momentarily  underestimating  one  of  the  greatest  poets  who 
has  sung  in  the  modern  Spanish  tongue.  Yet  at  the  bottom 
of  his  conception  is  there  not  a  play  upon  words?  May  not 
beauty  be  its  own  excuse  for  being?  For  all  Bolivar's 
glorious  exploits  could  he  have  penned  a  glorious  collection 
like  the  Canto  de  Vida  y  Esperanza?     Why  are  worlds  to 

;  be  redeemed  if  not  to  grant  the  Darios  their  leisure,  that 
they  may  in  turn  beautify  our  own?     Life  is  not  all  action; 

•  progress  is  not  all  w^ar;  there  is  poetry  in  the  flute  as  well 
as  in  the  trumpet,  in  the  blade  of  grass  as  well  as  in  the 

i  oak.  Nor  has  Blanco-Fombona  been  immune  to  this  ten- 
derer aspect;  he  has  written  excellent  pages  of  nature  love 
'  and  calm  repose.  Essentially,  however,  he  is  the  man  of 
'  action;  let  us  grant  him  his  conception  of  poetry, — and  this 
lis  all-important, — if  that  is  the  banner  under  which  he  can 
'  sing  best. 


320      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

It  was  to  the  Pequeha  opera  lirica  (1904)  that  Dario 
prefixed  a  short,  imaginative  study  which  showed  its  power 
of  grasping  the  essential  element  in  Blanco-Fombona's 
spirit.  "I  enjoy  the  verses  of  this  Spanish-American  poet," 
he  wrote,  "who  is  so  much  of  Italy,  so  much  of  the  Renais- 
sance, although  he  is  very  much  of  today,  and  has  Spanish 
blood,  and  was  born  in  Caracas,  and  dwells  in  Paris."  The 
poet  of  intense  personalism,  the  enemy  of  exoticism,  was 
capable  of  an  occasional  excursion  into  eighteenth  century 
elegance,  despite  his  masculine,  rigorous  conceptions  of 
life.  The  collection,  although  it  has  been  later  surpassed, 
produced  a  marked  effect  upon  the  youth  of  the  day.  A 
certain  deceptive  simplicity,  as  well  as  an  ardent  spon- 
taneity, were  responsible  for  this  influence.  Again  like 
Chocano,  there  is  the  epico-lyric  tendency  united  to  panthe- 
ism,— but  characteristically  enough,  a  pantheism  that  at 
times  is  imbued  with  the  same  indignation  as  is  felt  by  the 
author.  This  is  true  especially  of  the  poems  that  fol- 
lowed in  Cantos  de  la  Prision  y  del  Destierro  ( 1911 ) . 

The  "Songs  of  Prison  and  Exile"  are  the  author's  favor- 
ite writings.  They  embody,  literally,  the  spirit  of  the  poem 
Explicacion  in  the  Pequeha  opera  lirica: 

El  mejor  poema  es  el  de  la  vida; 
de  un  piano  en  la  noche  la  nota  perdida; 
la  estela  de  un  barco;  la  ruta  de  flores 
que  lleva  a  ciudades  ignotas;  dolores 
pueriles;  mananas  de  rinas;  sabor 
de  besos  no  dados,  y  amor  sin  amor. 


The  poems  of  prison  and  exile  are  such  stuff  as  life  is  made* 
of ^  ^Every  stanza  is  a  moment  of  existence  from  the  ter- 

7^ 


I 


RUFINO  BLANCO-FOMBONA  321 

riblo  days  of  my  last  iinprisDimicnt  bcUvcen  1909  and  1910, 
or  from  tlie  first  hours  of  my  exile,  whicli  were  the  most 
hitler  of  this  now  so  long  expatriation."  The  verses  were 
>vrilten  down  under  the  most  trying  circumstances,  with 
the  author  surrounded  by  spies,  manacled  in  a  dungeon, 
without  pen  or  paper.  More  even  than  Chocano,  Blanco- 
Fombona  imprisons  his  jailers  behind  the  bars  of  his  lyre. 
Like  Marti,  too,  he  declares  that  the  lines  were  written  willi 
his  blood.  "These  verses  will  avenge  me.  I  trust  in  ihein. 
While  there  exists  a  man  of  honor,  a  manly  spirit,  a  victim 
of  persecutors  and  a  woman  in  love,  my  verses  will  be  read, 
not  because  tliey  are  beautiful,  but  because  they  were  writ- 
ten with  blood,  with  tears,  with  gall,  because  they  are  of 
flesh  and  bone,  because  they  are  the  human  outcries  of  a 
man  who  has  suffered."  The  author,  as  well  as  any  critic, 
touches  upon  the  chief  appeal  of  his  lines.  They  burn 
with  rage,  yet  they  shine  with  an  occasional  spirituality 
that  lights  up  the  gloom  of  the  cell.  Such  an  illumination 
is  the  Vuelo  de  Psiquis  in  which  the  radiant  memory  of 
diings  beloved  eases  the  bitter  burden  of  the  prisoner: 

Me  abruma  el  calabozo.     Cruzan  mi  alma  inquieta 

pensamientos  obscuros; 
Y  rompense,  al  abrirse,  mis  alas  de  poeta 

contra  los  cuatro  muros. 

En  sepulcro;  ;y  viviente!;  Son  eternos  los  dias 

y  las  noches  eternas! 
Las  Penas  me  acompanan.     En  mi  torno  hay  espias 

y  grillos  en  mis  piernas. 

Pero  al  ceriar  los  ojos:  (luz,  campo,  cielo)  rairo 
romperse  las  cadenas; 


322      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

y  al  brazo  de  mi  novia  en  al  jardin  respiro 
magnolias  y  verbenas. 

Gozo  el  aire,  las  nubes,  y  el  chorro  del  estanque, 

frescor  como  mi  amada  .  .  ., 
Alguna  cosa  es  bueno  que  el  Despota  no  arranque 

ni  tenga  encadenada. 

So  passes  the  poet  from  vindictiveness  to  elation,  from 
gloom  to  sacred  ire,  ever  impelled  by  an  unquenchable 
thirst  for  vengeance.  The  early  imprisonment  of  the  au- 
thor explains  in  a  large  measure  the  development  of  his 
pugnacious  nature  into  a  torch  of  patriotism  and  hatred  for 
every  phase  of  oppression,  even  as  the  pugnacity  of  spirit 
may  explain  that  inattention  to  the  more  graceful  aspects 
of  technique  which  is  so  often  the  concomitant  of  ardent 
sincerity.  Yet  it  is  that  very  sincerity  which  renders  us 
willingly  forgetful  of  the  more  delicate  literary  traits. 
Tyrants  are  not  flayed  with  strips  of  silk  lace  or  drowned 
in  vases  of  cologne  water.  Against  his  tyrant  the  very 
trees  turn  in  indignation;  the  mountain  whither  he  has  fled 
refuses  him  shelter;  the  soil  is  transformed  into  rock;  the 
waters  arc  converted  into  blood.  All  nature  rebels  against 
the  supplicating  wretch. 

But  there  is  a  gentler  aspect  to  the  poet, — one  in  which 
he  chooses  to  appear  before  us,  for  more  than  a  moment, 
in  his  Cancionero  del  Amor  Infeliz  (1918).  And  so  great 
capacity  for  indignation  is  that  possessed  by  our  singer, 
that  he  does  not  wait  for  attacks,  but  in  a  prefatory  note 
launches  forth  to  meet  them.  He  does  not  deem  it  neces- 
sary to  apologize  for  a  book  of  love  verses.  (Wliy,  indeed, 
should  he?     And  why,  indeed,  raise  the  point?)      And  he 


RUFINO  BLANCO-FOMBONA  323 

very  sensibly  reminds  us  that  if  Plato  exiled  poets  riDin  his 
Republic,  Plato  should  have  been  the  first  to  condemn  him- 
self to  oslracisny  The  poems  of  the  Cancionero  belong  to 
various  stages  of  the  poet's  career  and  mirror  the  chang- 
ing piiases  of  such  love  as  even  a  man  of  action  can  feel. 
And  despite  his  yielding  to  the  gentler  muse,  Blanco-Fom- 
bona  is  still  the  man  of  arrogant,  pugnacious  sincerity. 
His  love  verse,  he  tells  us,  is  not  die  word  of  flame  that 
covers  the  heart  of  snow,  but  rather  the  word  of  snow  that 
covers  tlie  heart  of  fire.  In  all  his  protestations  as  to  the 
poetic  art  Blanco-Fombona  himself  seems  to  feel  that  he 
lacks  certain  of  the  more  stylistic  attributes,  wherefore  he 
combats  tliem  instead  of  remembering  that  the  creative  man 
is  the  master  of  his  own  style  and  that  styles  may  be  as 
many  as  men.  He  has  himself,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  recog- 
nized, if  not  constantly  kept  this  in  mind.  Speaking  of  his 
artistic  ancestry,  he  has  said,  "From  the  French,  as  from 
other  tongues,  I  have  taken  what  I  should  have  taken:  the 
example  of  love  of  literary-  independence,  a  thing  which  is 
in  accord  with  my  temperament.  This  does  not  signify 
the  imitation  of  anybody.  ...  I  hate  schools.  Neither  in 
politics  nor  in  literature  have  I  been  an  ist  of  any  sort.  I 
am  L  .  .  .  In  the  Siianish  language  Ruben  Dario  con- 
tinues, for  me,  to  be  higher  than  the  horns  of  the  moon;  I 
admire  Lugones,  who  is  in  fashion,  and  Diaz  Miron  (his 
first  manner)  who  is  not.  In  the  various  literatures  I  con- 
tinue to  be  fond  of  Verlaine,  Moreas  .  .  .  d'Annunzio, 
without  forgetting  Byron,  Musset,  Becquer,  Heine,  Jose 
\-unci6n  Silva,  and  above  all,  Hugo."  The  list  of  names 
'  attests  a  broad  eclecticism  upon  the  part  of  the  exiled  Vene- 
zuelan,— an  eclecticism  characteristic  of  his  age  as  well  as 


324       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

of  his  temperament.  If  it  is  possible  to  quarrel  with  a  man 
for  not  being  himself,  my  only  quarrel  with  Blanco-Fom- 
bona  as  a  poet  (or,  more  exactly,  as  the  critic  of  poets) 
would  be  for  his  insistence  upon  the  action  element  and 
his  narrowing  scorn  for  sheer  beauty  in  men  who  have  not 
been  bom  with  his  peculiar  constitution.  His  own  poetry 
is  a  torch  that  transmits  his  flame  to  us,  thus  eminently  ful- 
filling his  conception  of  its  mission.  Even  his  atheism  is 
not  the  calm,  philosophical  acceptance  of  a  hopeless  out- 
look, but  proud,  unresigned  defiance: 

LA  PROTESTA  DEL  PELELE 

Locura?     Bien.     No  me  resigno; 
que  se  resignen  los  esclavos. 
Deme  el  Destine  la  cicuta, 
el  Dolor  me  clave  sus  clavos. 

Yo  no  dire;  "bendito  seas, 
mi  Dios,  tu  voluntad  acato"; 
dire:  "soy  menos  que  el  insecto 
bajo  la  suela  de  un  zapato. 

pero  no  hay  que  beber  mis  lagrimas, 
ni  placerse  en  mi  desventura, 
6  asistir  con  aspecto  olimpico 
e  indiferente  a  mi  tortura; 

porque  en  mi,  pelele,  hay  sufrir, 
y  tengo  un  alma  yo,  el  enano, 
y  puedo  pesar  la  injusticia, 
y  puedo  juzgar  al  tirano." 

I  have  called  this  atheism,  and  we  know  from  plenty  of  tes- 
timony that  Blanco-Fombona  is  not  a  believer.     Yet  do 


RUFINO  BL/\NCO-FOMHONA  325 

you  see  how  his  very  anlagouisin  calls  fur  ihc  personifica- 
tion of  tlie  god  that  he  denies? 

Ill 

Blanco-Fombona's  e]ii«^f  eontrihutions  to  eritirism  are 
contained  in  two  volumes:  Letras  y  Letrados  dc  IJispano- 
America  (1908)  and  Grandes  Escritores  dc  America 
(1917).  In  them  ajipears  the  fighter,  the  personalist,  the 
lover  of  liberty  and  the  patriot  that  was  evident  in  his  very 
first  poems.  He  is  a  firm  believer  in  "literary  American- 
ism"; he  exalts  the  autochthonous  element,  at  times  unmind- 
ful of  exaggerations  and  of  enthusiasm  that  ovcrflinvs 
its  channel.  Yet  how  discerningly  he  pierces  to  the  heart 
of  his  subject!  He  possesses  a  modern,  vital  sense  of  the 
importance  of  background  and  epoch;  he  is  deeply  sensitive 
to  a  host  of  influences  deriving  from  the  past  as  well  as  the 
present;  he  is  patience  itself,  and  not  often  given  to  the 
snap  judgments  that  one  might  have  expected  from  so  im- 
pulsive a  spirit.  He  is,  above  all,  creative  in  his  criticism. 
Out  of  all  his  less  admirable  qualities  rises  that  potent 
fact;  and  until  mankind  shall  have  become  perfect,  let  us 
be  content  with  the  creative  realities  that  grow  as  much 
from  error  as  from  so-called  infallibility.  For  is  not  truth 
,  but  the  sum  of  errors? 

1       Take,  for  example,  Blanco-Fombona's  study  of  Leopoldo 

Diaz.     At  once  he  signalizes  the  two  dominating  traits  of 

the  artist, — traits  to  which  the  critic  himself,  as  a  poet,  is 

often  a  stranger:  delicacy  of  taste  and  structural  beauty. 

'  And  no  sooner  has  he  made  this  declaration,  a  propos  of  a 

*  French  translation  of  Diaz's  poems,  than  he  has  launched 

I  into  a  miniature  disquisition  upon  the  relative  poetic  poten- 


326      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

tialities  of  French  and  Spanish.  "The  French  language 
has  been  fashioned  by  great  artists  who  imparted  to  it  the 
flexibility  which  it  possesses  today.  Not  so  with  our  lan- 
guage. It  is  the  rude  tongue  of  the  Cid,  the  heroic  tongue 
of  the  Romancero.  It  is  we,  the  (Spanish)  Americans  who 
have  placed  it  upon  the  anvil,  who,  by  dint  of  much  patience 
have  wrought  and  polished  this  tongue  of  iron,  and  who, 
by  an  alchemy  less  mysterious  than  conscious,  have  changed 
it  from  bronze  to  gold.   .  .  ." 

(Is  not  this  somewhat  exaggerated?) 

"We,  bom  in  America,  sons  of  that  fecund  and  voluptu- 
ous soil,  mingled  with  the  indigenous  races  and  with  races 
from  the  south  and  north  of  Europe,  are  no  longer  the 
Spaniard  of  yore.  We  are  a  new  race.  And  within  the 
old  tongue  we  have  created  a  literary  language  of  our  own. 
.  .  .  Remy  de  Gourmont — and  his  phrase  has  had  great 
fortune — calls  our  tongue  neo-espanol.  And  it  should  be 
noted  and  repeated,  that  Leopoldo  Diaz,  with  the  prestige 
of  his  name  and  his  talent,  has  also  contributed  to  this  labor 
of  renovation. 

"Just  as  Simon  Bolivar,  San  Martin,  Sucre  and  Hidalgo 
gave  political  liberty  to  America,  Leopoldo  Diaz,  Gutierrez 
Najera,  Dario,  Casal  and  Lugones  gave  it  linguistic  liberty. 
The  Liberator  Bolivar,  after  the  battle  of  Ayacucho,  was 
able  to  exclaim:  'Soldiers!  You  have  brought  freedom  to 
South  America ;  and  a  fourth  part  of  the  world  is  the  monu- 
ment to  your  glory.     Where  have  you  not  conquered?' 

"And  the  poet-conqueror  Leopoldo  Diaz  may  likewise  ex- 
claim: 'Comrades!  We  have  given  wings  to  the  thoughts 
of  a  fourth  part  of  the  world.  In  what  lyric  emprise  have' 
we  not  conquered?'  " 


RUFINO  BLANCO-FOMBONA  327 

Blanco-Fombona's  motluxl  is  here  most  a(l('(|iial('  to  the 
purpose.  It  is  a  question,  if  not  of  a  now  literature,  at 
least  of  a  radical  re-orientation.  A  comprehension  of  the 
continental  background,  political  as  well  as  geoj^raphical, 
ethnological  and  sociological,  is  more  than  usually  neces- 
san'.  All  the  more  so  since  Blanco-Fombona,  knowing 
both  South  America  and  the  cultural  centres  of  Europe,  re- 
alizes the  one-sided  knowledge  possessed  by  outsiders,  of 
Spanish  America.  "In  Europe  we  are  judged  very  super- 
ficially. We  are  known  for  our  revolutions  more  than  for 
anything  else;  revolutions  which  are  not  caused  by  political 
incapacity,  as  Europe  imagines,  and  which  are  explained 
perfectly  by  Hispano- American  sociologists  who  should 
be  studied  by  the  European  sociologist  before  we  are  con- 
demned with  the  customary  doctoral  emphasis. 

"\^  e  are  barbarians?  Very  well:  yes,  we  are  barbarous; 
but  like  the  Italy  of  the  republics.  We  produce  harsh 
warriors,  like  Milan;  but  also  wealthy  merchants,  like 
Genoa,  and  great  artists,  like  Florence." 

Widi  tliese  patriotic  evocations  his  indignation  against 
political  aggression  swells.  ''The  United  States,"  he  de- 
clares, *'have  seventy  million  inhabitants":  (recall  when 
this  was  written)  "we,  not  counting  Brazil,  have  as  high  as 
fifty.  The  sentiment  of  Americanism  is  very  strong  in 
our  countries,  despite  our  not  being  joined  by  a  common 
political  bond.  The  writer  of  any  of  our  States,  has  the 
entire  continent  for  his  public.  Offences  directed  against 
any  of  our  nations  wound  us  all;  and  if  Europe  or  the 
United  States,  thinking  us  weak,  should  one  day  attack  us, 
*this  Latin-American  race,  *his  race  tlial  is  the  grandchild 
'  f  the  Cid  and  the  daughter  of  Morazan,  Juarez,  Sucre, 


328       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

San  Martin,  holds  tremendous  surprises  and  cruel  disil- 
lusionments  in  store  for  them." 

Not  all  his  criticism  resolves  into  polemical  digressions, 
however.  Thus,  considering  Diaz's  neo-Hellenism,  he 
makes  the  very  pertinent  observation  (so  self-evident  that  it 
is  strange  how  many  have  overlooked  it)  that  it  is  after  all 
a  neo-Hellenism,  a  view  of  Greece  through  nineteen  cen- 
turies of  Christianity,  and  not  without  its  stylistic  disad- 
vantages. Naturally,  then,  it  is  Diaz's  collection  of  son- 
nets called  Los  Conquistadores  which  attracts  our  conti- 
nental patriot  more  than  the  Hellenic  evocations.  Where- 
upon another  question  arises  in  the  critic's  active  mind: 
"Has  there  existed,  in  America,  up  to  a  short  time  ago, 
a  national  literature  which  is  the  blood  of  our  blood, — 
which  is  ours  as  are  our  rivers,  our  plains,  our  mountains?" 

"What  is  sure,"  he  replies  to  himself,  "is  that  we  have 
for  a  long  time  lived  on  borrowings.  That  we  have  imi- 
tated and  rifled  the  Europeans,  above  all  the  Spaniards 
and  the  French.  I  do  not  censure  this.  That  is  our  right. 
Only,  from  the  foreign  flowers  we  must,  like  skillful  bees, 
make  our  own  honey.  Did  not  the  Romans  sack  the  Greeks 
and  did  not  the  Europeans  steal  from  the  Latins  and 
Greeks?     The  first  obligation  is  to  live.     Then  let  us  live!" 

It  is  easy  to  note,  from  what  I  have  translated,  the  lyric 
element  in  Blanco-Fombona's  criticism.  He  does  more 
than  elucidate  his  subject;  he  maintains  a  running  fire  of 
commentary,  suggestion,  refutation,  threat,  glorification; 
he  plunges  his  entire  personality  into  the  task.  Little  ho 
recks  of  academic  unity  and  rhetorical  prescriptions.  But 
read  the  essay,  then  drop  it,  and  you  will  be  astonished  to' 


RUFINO  BLANCO-FOMKONA  329 

I(\ini  how  much  you  luvc  discovered.  Blanco-Fomhona 
i>  IK)  Kodo  as  regards  style;  l)ul  he  possesses  that  irony, 
tliat  pugnacity,  tluit  variety,  whicli  were  hiekinj:;  in  tlie 
Uruguayan  master.  He  is,  as  essayist,  tlie  eompU-ment  of 
Rodo,  just  as  we  have  found  Chocano  to  be  the  poetic  com- 
plement of  Dario.  He  has  a  deep  sense  of  beauty,  but  it  is 
a  rugged  beauty,  insofar  as  it  is  translated  into  prose  style. 
Rodo's  prose  is  the  luxuriant,  variegated  plain;  Blanco- 
F'ombona's  is  the  sturdy  sierra.  It  takes  both  to  produce 
die  Spanish-American  landscape. 

For  examples  of  Blanco-Fombona  at  his  best  as  critic, 
1  would  point  to  such  studies  as  those  on  Andres  Bello  and 
on  Gonzalez  Prada  in  his  Grandes  Escritores  de  America. 
No  less  than  Rodo,  he  reveals  himself  in  these  estimates 
of  his  glorious  predecessors, — his  fiery  passion  for  truth 
and  freedom,  even  if  it  means,  for  a  moment,  to  speak 
against  his  idol.  And  he  is  aware  of  this  self-revelation. 
As  he  remarks  in  his  prefatory  note,  "the  author  observes 
with  pleasure,  as  he  corrects  the  proofs,  that  all  the  per- 
sonages here  treated  are  or  were  free  men  and  free  spirits. 
To  no  adulator  of  tyrants,  no  servile  pen,  no  writer  in  livery 
is  there  here  erected  an  altar.  The  author,  then,  without 
deliberate  purpose,  bowed  in  books,  as  in  his  life,  only  to 
those  who  bear  their  heads  and  their  consciences  erect. 
And  he  also  observes,  likewise  with  pleasure,  that  in  his 
studies  more  stress  is  laid  upon  the  man  than  upon  the 
litterateur,  and  that  the  life  and  character  of  each  author 
merit  as  much  attention,  at  least,  as  his  work."  Blanco- 
Fombona,  then,  is  an  auto-critic  as  well.  So  widely  read  a 
student  as  Gonzalez-Bianco  docs  not  hesitate  to  declare  that 


330      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AJVIERICAN  LITERATURE 

the  studies  upon  Sarmiento,  Gonzalez  Prada  and  Hostos 
may  be  considered  among  the  excellent  pages  of  Spanish 
criticism  produced  in  the  past  twenty  years. 

As  a  critic,  tlien  (and  in  this  connection  the  brief,  but 
by  no  means  superficial  criticism  in  the  first  part  of  La 
Ldmpara  de  Aladino  in  the  section  called  Nombres  should 
be  taken  into  account)  Blanco-Fombona  is  the  familiar 
mordant  spirit,  penetrating  in  appreciation,  lofty  in  ideal- 
ism, usually  tolerant  and  never  dogmatic  in  attitude,  per- 
sonal without  being  merely  impressionistic,  and  above  all, 
creative. 

IV 

Blanco-Fombona's  views  upon  the  development  of  Span- 
ish America  are  compressed  into  a  little  book  of  remark- 
able concision.  The  Political  and  Social  Evolution  of 
His  pane- America  was  written  originally  for  the  Revue  des 
Revues,  at  the  instance  of  its  editor,  Jean  Finot,  who  found 
it  too  long  for  the  purpose  and  desired  to  prune  it  with  the 
editorial  shears.  Our  author  took  back  his  contribution 
and  decided  to  enlarge  the  essay  instead.  Out  of  this  labor 
grew  two  lectures  delivered  in  Madrid  during  the  montli 
of  June,  1911.     The  book  was  published  in  the  same  year. 

The  author  is  thoroughly  alive  to  the  dangers  of  diplo- 
macy and  the  international  character  of  his  apparently 
Spanish-American  subject,  and  in  his  introductory  re- 
marks, by  the  simple  suggestion  of  imagining  die  sudden 
disappearance  of  Spanish  America,  brings  the  point  strik- 
ingly home.  The  study  is  divided  into  four  main  parts: 
The  Colony,  Independence,  Organization  of  the  New* 
States  and  the  Republic. 


RUFINO  BLANCO-FOMBONA  331 

Blanco-Fombona  docnis  il  essential  lor  tlir  Caucasian  cle- 
ment to  predomiiuile;  the  same  man  wlio  is  unsparing  in 
his  ilenunciation  of  the  whites'  maltreatment  of  the  natives, 
finds  none  tlie  less  that  posterity  has  been  little  ju>^t  toward 
the  work  and  the  efforts  of  the  conquistadores.  It  w  is  the 
Spanish  conqueror  who  brought  civilization, — character- 
ized at  fust  l)y  joint  theocratic  and  military  power.  De- 
spite legislation  in  favor  of  the  natives,  the  latter  were 
cruelly  treated,  as  the  laws  were  unheeded.  With  the  im- 
portation of  negroes  from  Africa  came  a  new  racial  ele- 
ment, and  the  inter-marriage  of  Spaniards  with  negro  and 
Indian  women  produced  mulattos  and  mestizos.  "These 
will  merge  with  one  another,  the  same  as  the  white  descend- 
ants of  the  conquistadores,  and  will  produce  an  inextric- 
able confusion  of  hybridisms,  a  scale  of  colors  tliat  begins 
with  the  audientic  black  and  the  coppery  Indian  and  ends 
with  the  white,  passing  through  all  the  shades  of  chocolate 
and  coffee  with  milk.  'It  is  not  known  to  which  branch 
of  tlie  human  family  we  belong,'  Bolivar  was  to  write  in 
his  message  to  tlie  Congress  of  Angostura,  in  1819." 

As  to  the  population,  then,  in  this  era,  it  is  tlie  same 
throughout  America,  even  as  are  the  methods  of  the  Spanish 
conqueror.  "The  adventurers  fare  forth  to  conquest,  with 
or  without  official  support.  The  religious  orders  form 
missions  and  reduce  die  Indians.  The  Viceroy  or  Captain- 
General  does  not  rule  without  counter-authority,  although 
his  power  is  great;  and  the  Cabildos,  by  whom  tlie  cities  are 
administered,  are  a  foreshadowing  of  modem  liberties." 
To  the  Spanish  policy  of  exclusivism  (it  was  a  eouneillor 
of  Felipe  III  who  branded  the  interchange  of  products  with 
any  odier  countr)-  than  Spain  "an  invention  of  the  devil") 


332       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

the  spirit  of  contraband  arose.  The  author  quotes  the 
Brazilian  sociologist  Manoel  Bomfin  to  the  effect  that  at  this 
stage  both  Spain  and  Portugal  were  parasitic  nations  living 
upon  Colonial  America.  The  truth  is,  adds  our  author, 
that  they  were  incapable,  or  at  least  unskillful,  in  their 
exploitation. 

Spain,  in  its  effort  to  retard  the  intellectual  progress  of 
the  colonies,  used  religion  as  its  chief  weapon.  The  found- 
ing of  universities  was  prohibited,  and  an  embargo  placed 
upon  every  manner  of  book,  even  though  it  treated  of  secu- 
lar and  fictive  matter.  "But  it  is  impossible  to  sequestrate 
an  entire  people.  The  'noble'  Americans,  despite  the  re- 
strictions, exposing  their  liberty  and  their  lives,  read  Hume, 
Hobbes  and  even  Voltaire,  Rousseau  and  other  encyclo- 
pedists." Some  journeyed  to  Europe.  "Independence 
was  only  a  question  of  time  and  opportunity."  Tlien 
came  the  great  year  of  1810  in  which  the  revolution  broke 
out  in  all  the  capitals.  "In  Caracas,  the  19tli  of  April;  in 
Buenos  Aires,  die  25th  of  May;  in  Bogota,  the  20th  of 
July;  in  Quito,  the  2nd  of  August;  in  Mexico,  the  16th  of 
September;  in  Santiago  de  Chile,  the  18th  of  the  same 
month."  Blanco-Fombona  feels  a  fierce  pride  in  that  first 
date;  it  is  his  native  city  that  began  the  great  overturn. 

He  is  too  much  the  historian,  however,  to  reproach  Spain 
for  her  conduct.  "Besides  being  futile  it  is  absurd,  and 
proves  ignorance  of  sociological  laws.  But,"  he  adds,  in 
the  very  next  paragraph,  "it  would  be  ignorance  of  those 
same  laws  to  condemn  the  Revolution."  It  was,  in  its  be- 
ginnings, an  oligarchic  and  municipal  revolution,  in  which 
the  people  had  no  part.  It  was  a  superior  minority  that 
accomplished  the  work,  utilizing  the  municipal  power  that 


RUFINO  BLANCO-FOMBONA  333 

lad  been  transmitted  tt)  Iut  American  sons  liy  Spain,  wlio 
lad  inherited  it  from  Rome*  ''The  revolution  was  munic- 
pal  because  it  was  in  Uie  Cabildos  that  tlie  revolutionists 
/ere  found."  With  strikini:;  unanimity  the  revohitionists 
ecreed  the  abolition  of  slavery,  the  freedom  of  industries, 
reedom  of  commerce,  liberty  of  the  press,  suppression 
f  nobiliary  titles,  an  open  door  to  the  men  of  every  land, 
ace,  religions  and  opinion.  Ecclesiastical  power  was 
iken  away,  the  tribute  of  the  Indians  was  abolished.  The 
Vew  World  was  born  anew. 

The  war  which  followed  was  "at  the  same  time  civil  and 
nternational."  International  as  against  Spain;  civil  be- 
ause  of  the  differences  that  arose  among  the  colonies, 
kmong  the  curious  phenomena  noted  during  the  strife  was 
le  infiltration  of  the  revolutionary  ideas  into  tlie  enemy 
amp.  It  was  in  Venezuela,  as  we  have  seen,  that  the  bat- 
'e  lasted  longest  and  was  waged  most  violently. 

No  sooner  had  the  revolution  got  under  way  when  the 
ueslion  arose  as  to  whether  the  new  states  should  consti- 
ite  themselves  into  a  democracy  or  a  monarchy.  The 
s^ortherners  desired  a  federal  republic  after  our  own 
attem;  the  Southerners,  a  monarchial  form.  The  oppos- 
ig  ideas  were  incarnated  in  Bolivar,  the  Republican,  and 
1  San  Martin,  monarchist.  At  the  historic  meeting  at 
'Uayaquil  they  held  three  secret  conferences  and  then 
arted  forever.  The  result  was  a  triumph  for  Blanco- 
'ombona's  idol,  Bolivar.  And  how  valiantly  and  patiently 
as  our  author  labored  in  tlie  cause  of  the  Liberator! 
■lone  better  than  he  has  fairly  dramatized  the  vast  work 
\\d  the  enduring  influence  of  that  epic  figure,  who  antici- 
,ated   Buckle   and   Taine   in   his   appreciation   of  the   in- 


334      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

fluence  of  environment,  who  so  admired  the  English  consti- 
tution, who  as  early  as  1815  formed  a  great  project  for  a 
league  of  nations,  to  meet  at  Panama. 

The  author  offers  a  thorough  explanation  of  the  numer- 
ous wars  that  have  been  fought  upon  Spanish-Americar 
territory  since  the  struggle  for  Independence.  These  h( 
refers  to  four  chief  causes:  (1)  cross  breeding;  (2)  pauc 
ity  of  population  and  scarcity  of  means  of  communication 
(3)  lack  of  liberty;  (4)  ignorance.  Coming  to  the  inter 
national  relations  of  Spanish  America,  and  its  spirit  oJ 
solidarity,  he  finds  it  convenient  to  classify  under  thret 
headings :  ( 1 )  the  threat  of  monarchial  Europe,  which  wa.' 
answered  by  a  rebirth  of  Bolivar's  continental  ideas  o) 
federation  and  solidarity,  and  by  the  Monroe  Doctrine 
which  was  at  the  time  of  its  promulgation  well  received  ii 
Spanish  America;  (2)  a  growing  mistrust  of  the  Unitec 
States  since  1845-1850  because  of  its  "mutilation  of  Mex 
ico  and  its  filibusterism  in  Central  America,  and  a  perma 
nent  mistrust  of  Europe,  which  does  not  cease  to  tlireatei 
us."  This  endures  until  the  final  quarter  of  the  nineteen*] 
century;  (3)  hatred  and  fear  of  tlie  United  States,  and  ; 
decreasing  suspicion  of  Europe.  At  every  outside  threat 
the  sense  of  solidarity  is  reborn.  '"The  history  of  ou 
ephemeral  unions  is  the  history  of  foreign  aggression." 

During  the  final  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century,  note 
Blanco-Fombona,  two  new  currents  appear:  Pan-American 
ism,  with  Anglo-American  influence  predominating,  am 
Pan-Hispanism,  which  tends  to  counteract  the  first.  Witl 
the  beginning  of  the  twentieth  century  comes  a  spirit  o 
friendship  with  Europe  at  all  costs,  to  offset  the  imperialisn 
of  the  United  States  and  even  its  mere  approach,  "sine 


RUFINO  BLANCOFOMBONA  335 

I  that  countr)',  by  its  customs,  its  coiucplion  of  life,  its  inca- 
pacity Ii>r  the  Fine  Ails  aiul  its  lack  ot  ideals,  is  the  oppo- 
site pole  of  South  America."     This  approach  to  Europe 
*  itself  splits   in  two,  one  direction   favoring  England  and 
:  Gennany,  tlie  other  Latin  Europe.     The  last  is  the  more 
powerful. 

Unfortunately  this  is  the  prevailing  attitude  toward  the 
'  United  States,  so  far  as  one  may  judge  from  the  utterances 
'■  of  representative  figures.      I  say  unfortunately,  for  several 
'  reasons.     First,  because  tlie  attitude  is  not  wholly  unjusti- 
I  fied,  however  exaggerated  it  may  become  in  certain  temper- 
>  aments;  Professor  Ford,  referring  to  Mexico,"*  speaks  of 
'  "tlie  events  of  a  war,  which  not  all  our  historians  find  it 
easy  to  regard  with  complacency."     There  are  other,  later 
)  events    concerning    our   national    relations    with    Spanish 
i  America  that  are  equally  difficult  to  regard  with  compla- 
cency.    Second,  the  opponents  of  the  United  Slates  seem- 
ingly disregard  the  elements  in  it  tliat  are  opposed  to  the 
I  selfsame  spirit  of  aggrandizement  that  the  Spanish  Amer- 
'  icans  fear  from  our  nation.     Third,  we  have,  as  a  people, 
done  little  to  dispel  false  notions.     We  have  no  gifted  men 
I  like  Blanco-Fombona,  Manuel  Ugarte  and  Francisco  Gar- 
I  cia  Calderon.  counteracting  the  acrimonious  utterances  and 
revealing  whatever  of  fallacy  they  contain.     For  the  view 
'  that  Spanish  America  is  entirely  wrong  is  myopic,  fatuous, 
dangerous.     We  are  committing  the  blunder  of  underes- 
timating Spanish  America,  and   there  are  many  ways   in 
which  that  blunder  may  be  driven  home  to  us.     We  must 
know  the  worst  that  Spanish   America   thinks  of  us  and 
must  strive  to  change  that  worst  to  best.     If  it  takes  two 

*  Main  Currents  of  Spanish  Literature.     Page  243. 


336       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

to  make  a  quarrel,  it  takes  two  to  make  a  friendship.  For 
that  purpose  a  little  more  literature  and  much  less  politics 
will  go  a  long  way.  There  is  as  much  patriotism  in  recog- 
nizing a  wrong  attitude  as  in  boasting  a  right.  By  no 
means  do  I  concede  all  that  Blanco-Fombona  says  against 
the  United  States.  More  than  once  he  is  grievously  wrong. 
But  I  insist  that  such  opposition  must  be  met  witli  some- 
thing more  than  silence. 

We  are  not  alone  in  our  misunderstanding  of  Spanish 
America.  The  statement  made  by  Clemenceau  to  French- 
men on  his  return  from  his  trip  to  South  America  is  almost 
as  applicable  today:  "We  judge  them  more  or  less  super- 
ficially; let  us  not  forget  that  they  judge  us,  too."  This  is 
all  the  more  significant  in  view  of  the  immense  importance 
of  French  influence  upon  the  cultural  and  intellectual  de- 
velopment of  Spanish  America. 

Out  of  this  important  study  by  our  most  fanatic  hater 
(whose  attitude  I  respect  because  of  his  undoubted  sincerity, 
even  as  I  deplore  it  for  its  too  universal  application)  rises 
the  spirit  of  a  nascent  race  and  a  continental  soul.     Both 
race  and  soul  are  as  yet  indistinct,  yet  acquire  homogeneity 
with  each  passing  year.     Thus,  from  the  continentalism  ol 
a  merely  geographic  accident  Spanish  America  is  attain- 
ing to  the  continentalism  of  a  new  race,  a  new  soul,  a  ne\^ 
literature,  new  aspirations.     From  our  studies  of  Chocanc 
and  Rodo  it  is  easy  to  see  that  the  politico-economic  phase 
is  but  the  basis  for  a  higher  expansion.     The  career  oJ 
Spanish  America  is  yet  at  its  beginning.     It  may  be  as  on( 
of  the  great  poets  has  said:  "America  es  el  porvenir  de 
mundo." — (Spanish)  America  is  the  figure  of  the  world 
All   signs   point   to   its   immediate   universal   importance 


1 1  RIIFINO  Bl^XNCO-FOMBONA  337 

From  Asia  to  Furopr,  from  Europo  to  North  Anifrira,  and 
tliciu'o  .soiitlnvanl,  the  coiiisc  of  progress  wends  its  way. 
Our  best  response  to  Spanish-American  suspicion  is  to  give 

j  -  iheir  fears  the  lie.     Shall  we?   .   .   . 

V  In  connection  with  this  phase  ol  his  labors  it  is  im- 
portant to  k(^ep  in  mitnl  Blanco-Fomhona's  incessant  re- 
searches dealing  with  every  aspect  of  Bolivar's  career. 
His  Cartas  dc  Bolivar,  1913  (Letters  of  Bolivar)  are  as  yet 
in  their  first  volume,  and  represent  four  years  of  unremit- 
ting toil.     "Although  this  work  is  not  mine,  hut  that  of  the 

'  Liberator,"  he  tells  us,  "it  represents  an  accunuilation  of 
effort  twenty  times  greater  than  that  required  by  any  other 

•  book  hitherto  published  by  me."  It  is  from  Bolivar,  in- 
deed, that  tlie  ardent  Venezuelan  draws  his  unflagging  fer- 
vor of  continental  patriotism.  He  is  the  spirit  of  Bolivar 
fighting  in  the  world  of  contemporary  tliought.  He  thinks 
with  a  Bolivarian  sweep.  His  conception  of  the  New 
World  and  its  destinies  is  that  of  Bolivar.  And  he  is  a 
worthy  paladin. 

Of  the  more  purely  polemical  writings  of  Blanco-Fom- 

>  bona  it  is  not  necessary  to  speak  here  at  length.     He  can  be 

I  withering,  sardonic,  terrible,  at  will.  Read  the  Introduc- 
tion to  his  Judas  Capitolino  (1912)  and  you  will  gather 

'  his  purpose  as  fulfilled  in  the  pages  that  follow.  If  words 
can  nail  tyrants  to  a  cross,  Blanco-Foinbona  wields  tin; 
mighty  hammer. 


To  foreigners  whose  literary  interests  are  of  a  general 
nature  it  is  Blanco-Fomhona's  fiction  that  will  prove  of 
most   intimate  appeal.     That  fiction  possesses  tlie  double 


338       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

attraction  of  being  autochthonous  in  inspiration  as  well  as 
personal  (though  not  subjective)  in  style. 

His  very  first  tales  {Cuentos  de  poeta,  1900)  displayed 
his  alignment  with  the  modernist  reformers  of  prose. 
"Today,"  says  the  author,  in  the  history  of  his  books  which 
forms  by  no  means  the  least  interesting  part  of  La  Ldmpara 
de  Aladino,  "nobody  recalls  this  book,  nor  do  I  desire  it 
to  be  remembered.  I  repudiate  those  tales,  I  disown  them, 
I  do  not  care  for  them,  I  do  not  consider  them  mine.  The 
only  ones  among  them  that  I  recognize  I  gathered  after 
submitting  them  to  pruning  and  orthopedy,  in  the  Cuentos 
Americanos  (Madrid,  1904)  and  in  an  augmented  and 
definitive  edition  of  Garnier,  Paris,  1913."  The  Cuentos 
de  Poeta  appeared  in  a  French  edition  under  the  title  Contes 
Americains,  but  these  are  likewise  denied  by  the  author. 
The  tales  are  characterized  by  a  spirit  of  analysis,  irony, 
even  pessimism.  As  early  as  their  appearance  in  French. 
Henri  Barbusse  recognized  in  them  a  touch  of  Maupassant 
for  their  brevity,  Daudet  for  their  emotion,  and  of  Villiers 
d'Isle  Adam  for  their  tragic  irony. 

"I  leave  to  my  fair  readers,"  (i.e.  lectrices,  for  M.  Bar- 
busse then  edited  the  Femina)  wrote  the  author  who  has 
since  given  us  Nous  Autres,  Le  Feu,  L'Enfer  and  Clarte, 
"the  trouble  of  investigating  whether  it  is  not  a  token  of 
personality  to  summon  at  the  same  time  the  thought  of 
three  so  divers  talents,  and  I  add  that  the  surprising  va- 
riety of  these  short  tales  ...  as  well  as  the  picturesque 
local  color  that  saturates  them  all  in  a  Venezuelan  atmos- 
phere, imparts  a  highly  individual  character.  .  .  ." 

The  tales  are  told  with  a  most  self-critical  economy  of  ' 
means  and  every  refinement  of  contemporary  technique. 


RUFINO  BLANCO-FOMBONA  339 

[n  such  stories  as  Molinos  de  Maiz,  El  Canalla  San  An- 

'onio  and  Democracia  Criolla  it  is  not  merely  the  exotic 

•lenient  tliat  appeals  to  us, — and   what,  after  all,   is  the 

Aotic,  but  a  lesser  kno\vn  part  of  ourselves?      Bcliind  the 

\oticism  is  something  peculiarly  human, — something  we 

iKiy  note  in  the  two  novels  that  follow.     The  intense  fa- 

:iaticism,  the  political  warfare,  the  economic  transforma- 

lions  mirrored  in  these  tales  fuse  admirably  with  the  action 

itself.     Not    many    tales    that    have    come    out    of   South 

America  can  match  tlie  masterpiece  Creole  Democracy. 

It  is  in  his  novels  that  the  Venezuelan's  power  as  a  writer 
of  fiction  may  be  studied  most  completely. 

The  Man  of  Iron  {El  H ombre  de  Hierro,  1907)  and 
The  Man  of  Gold  {El  Hombre  de  Oro,  1915)  are  best  con- 
sidered together.  Tliey  form  an  ideological  unity;  al- 
(hough  in  no  sense  is  the  second  the  sequel  of  the  first; 
t  IS  rather  a  natural  outgrowth  from  the  first,  or  a  com- 
plement to  it. 

Blanco-Fombona's  novels,  like  those,  for  example,  of 
Manuel  Diaz  Rodriguez,  form  a  delightful  contrast,  in 
their  limpid,  pregnant  brevity,  to  tlie  oceanic  tomes  of  the 
earlier  days, — to  the  Amalia  of  Jose  Marmol,  the  Manuela 
af  Eugenio  Diaz,  the  Martin  Rivas  of  Blest  Gana.  The 
change  is  not  only  in  length,  but  in  style.  Yet  the  inner 
spirit  of  revolt  is  there,  etched  in  firm  strokes  that  leave  a 
cutting  impression  upon  the  reader.  Blanco-Fombona  is 
everywhere  the  passionate  patriot,  and  often  his  passion 
rises  higher  tlian  his  patriotism.  He  pierces  at  once  to  tlie 
heart  of  his  characters;  he  draws  in  the  background  with 
swift  but  sure  strokes;  he  wastes  little  time  upon  purely 
literary  graces.     His  pages,  at  times  overdrawn,  are  never 


340       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

dull ;  competent  witnesses  declare  that  his  pictures  of  Vene- 
zuelan manners  are  true  to  life;  here,  as  every^where  else, 
you  get  the  impression  that  whatever  else  the  man  may  be, 
he  is  intensely,  even  fanatically,  sincere. 

Who  is  his  "man  of  iron"?  A  mere  creature  of  wax. 
Who  is  his  "man  of  gold"?  A  creature  of  dross,  being  of 
the  earth  most  earthy.  The  very  titles  of  his  two  novels 
reveal  the  ironic  substructure  of  so  much  of  the  author's 
work.  He  is  deeply  sensitive  to  the  irony  of  life;  he  has 
undergone  it  in  no  small  degree.  More,  indeed,  than  any 
of  the  writers  considered  in  this  book  he  possesses  the 
gift  of  the  scorpion  sting.  As  often  as  not,  whether  in  his 
poetry  or  his  prose,  it  is  his  indignation,  his  rancor,  that 
speaks  its  heart.  His  irony,  however,  is  not  that  of  a  con- 
templative Hardy,  with  a  smile  in  his  eye  and  a  very  deli- 
cate, scornful  curl  upon  his  lip.  Nor  is  it,  on  the  other 
hand,  a  carping,  withering  sarcasm. 

It  is  true  that  the  background  of  both  novels  is  the  writer's 
native  Venezuela,  and  more  particularly  the  city  of  Caracas. 
But  the  inner  tale  unfolded  has  all  humanity  as  the  pro- 
tagonist and  tlie  world  as  milieu.  The  triumph  of  evil  over 
good  is  as  old  as  sin, — precisely  as  old;  the  portrayal  of 
this  triumph  in  a  work  of  art  utterly  devoid  of  preachiness 
and  bringing  to  us  a  new,  poignant  realization  of  the  old 
knowledge,  is  a  triumph  for  Blanco-Fombona's  skill. 

Nor  should  it  be  imagined  that  the  noted  exile  from 
Venezuela  is  lacking  in  the  more  tender  traits.  There  are 
pages  of  simple,  haunting  pathos  in  the  two  novels  that  are 
difficult  to  match  for  their  directness,  their  unadorned, 
straightforward  manner.  One  suspects,  and  not  on  the? 
evidence  of  these  pages  alone,  that  for  all  his  early  bragga-  j 


RUFINO  BLANCO-FOMBONA  %i\ 

(locio  and  swashbuckling,  Hlanco-Fomhona  has,  at  hoftoni. 
a  tciulor  lioart,  laden  willi  as  niucli  sorrow  as  vcnoni.  .is 
much  honey  as  gall. 

Kl  Hombrc  dc  Ilierro  was  written  in  prison.  The  author, 
who  had  in  lOQl-  given  up  his  position  as  Venezuelan  eon- 

'  sul  in  Amsterdam,  had  returned  to  his  native  land,  or,  as 
he  calls  it,  ''mi  eonvulsiva  tiernica."  In  I'H)."!  lie  was 
named  governor  of  the  Territorio  Amazonas,  a  wild  dis- 

■   trict  bordering  upon  Brazil,  and  it  was  here,  as  we  have 

'  seen,  that  he  underwent  a  series  of  strange  adventures. 
Out  of  the  attack  upon  the  administration  building  grew 
charges  against  him  for  murder  and  assault.  He  was  im- 
prisoned in  Ciudad  Bolivar,  and  later  freed,  having  been 
found  innocent.  "Tlie  Man  of  Iron,"  then,  was  bom  in  the 
cell,  which  has  nurtured  many  a  masterpiece.       The  writ- 

'  ing  took  eight  weeks;  the  result  was  one  of  the  author's 
most  enduring  book^  , 

Crispin  Luz  is  the  highly  trusted  book-keeper  of  the 
firm  Perrin  and  Company.  He  is  not  only  a  model  em- 
ployee,  but   a   model   person   altogether.     He   is   deeply 

\  devout;  he  is  the  incarnation  of  self-sacrifice;  he  respects, 

'  even  worships,  authority.  He  not  only  gives  of  his  best  to 
his  employer  within  working  hours,  but  takes  work  home, 
where  he  occupies  a  dubious  position,  because  of  his  hum- 
ble, submissive  nature.  He  is  by  no  means  the  favorite 
child  of  his  mother,  a  novel-devouring,  yet  practical  woman 
who  keeps  an  open  eye  upon  the  family  budget. 

\^  hen  the  time  comes  for  Crispin  to  marry,  he  is 
brought  together  with  his  future  wife,  by  much  the  same 
method  as  plotting  matchmakers  may  learn  from  "Much 

'  Ado  About  Nothing,"     Maria  herself,  though  not  so  meek 


342       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

as  Crispin,  is  colorless  and  imitative  enough  to  desire  a  hus- 
band because  it  is  the  regular  thing, — because  most  maidens 
marry,  because  her  giddy  cousin  is  happily  engaged  to  a 
vivacious  dandy;  because,  in  short,  she  is  talked  into  the 
match.  Crispin,  however,  worships  her  with  the  worship 
of  the  meek  for  unexpected  joys.  Yet  early  he  feels,  rather 
than  detects,  that  all  is  not  as  it  should  be.  Perhaps  the 
advent  of  a  child  will  tighten  the  bonds  between  husband 
and  wife;  yet  when  the  child  comes,  it  brings  with  its  ugli- 
ness only  more  sorrow. 

The  truth  is  that  Maria  has  never  known  real  love  until 
it  has  been  revealed  to  her  through  Julio  de  Najera,  a 
Brummelesque  Don  Juan  whose  voluptuous  epicureanism 
takes  delight  more  in  the  quest  than  in  the  conquest,  and 
who,  once  he  has  attained  his  egotistic  ends,  forgets  Maria 
for  another.  In  the  meantime  Crispin,  blind  to  every- 
thing, toils  away  slavishly,  undermining  his  fragile  con- 
stitution. The  inevitable  occurs;  he  is  stricken  v/ith  tuber- 
culosis of  the  lungs  and  soon  dies  as  humbly  and  as  meekly 
as  he  has  lived.  Life  has  made  sport  of  him  from  the  be- 
ginning to  the  end;  in  his  family  he  was  but  a  footstool;  in 
business  he  was  a  tool;  in  love  he  was  a  dupe;  he  was  the 
victim  of  the  sum  of  his  virtues,  which  consumed  him  like 
an  overmastering  vice. 

The  man  of  iron,  so  named  by  Mr.  Perrin  because  of 
his  reliance  upon  the  faithful  employee, — his  right  arm, — - 
was  really  but  a  man  of  putty.  Yet  could  anyone  have 
pointed  to  a  single  characteristic  of  his  and  said  "This  is 
evil"?  While  he  himself  was  saintly,  all  too  saintly,  he 
was  victimized  by  the  all  too  human. 

The  author  makes  no  concessions  to  the  reader  of  popu- 


RUFINO  BLANCO-FOMBONA  313 

lar  novels.  He  begins  at  the  end,  alter  the  funeral  of 
Crispin,  and  very  skillfully  glides  hack  into  tlic  clnoniele 
of  events,  leading  at  last  to  the  death  and  burial  in  the  linal 
chapter,  thus  completing  the  circle.  His  characterization 
is  rapid,  hut  by  no  means  superficial;  his  scenes  are  brief, 
but  not  blurred.  From  its  technical  aspect,  indeed  "The 
Man  of  Iron,"  together  with  its  successor,  is  athletie  both 
in  strength  and  freedom  from  snperfluity.  There  is  not  a 
character,  a  scene,  a  situation,  that  may  be  dispensed  with; 
every  word,  indeed,  contributes  its  necessary  share  to  the 
whole.  From  this  standpoint,  there  is  a  world  of  difference 
between  Rlanco-Fombona's  novels  and  an  Amalia  or  a 
Martin  Ritas.  His  ability  to  compress  a  characterization, 
at  its  best,  is  indicative  of  intimate  acquaintance  with  de 
Maupassant;  at  its  worst  it  degenerates  into  caricature, 
though  happily  not  very  often. 

The  patriot  is  evident  in  his  satire  against  natives  who 
have  travelled  abroad  and  must  vent  their  superiority  by 
depreciating  tlie  limitations  of  Caracas;  the  fair-m-inded 
critic  is  likewise  revealed  by  the  fact  that  one  of  the  noblest 
figures  in  the  book  is  a  Roman  Catholic  priest,  Father  Iz- 
nardi, — so  noble,  indeed,  that  he  is  forced  out  of  the  coun- 
try by  the  hostile  attitude  of  the  organized  church,  wliich 
will  have  none  of  his  civic  and  patriotic  virtues. 

Whether  he  is  describing  an  earthquake  or  the  inception 
if  a  revolution,  an  excursion  to  the  country  or  the  death  of 
3ne  of  the  meek  who  did  not  obtain  his  share  of  the  inher- 
tancc  of  the  earth,  Blanco-Fombona  seizes  unerringly  upon 
he  essential  traits.  The  earthquake  is  no  mere  piece  of 
description, — it  reveals  the  temper  of  the  populace,  the 
)ravery  of  the  priest;  the  inception  of  the  revolt  is  likewise 


344       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

illuminating  as  to  the  Venezuelan  background  against  which 
Crispin  Luz  plays  his  eminently  virtuous,  eminently  ludi- 
crous role. 

Who  are  the  happy  in  El  H ombre  de  Hierro?  The  per- 
sons with  hearts  of  iron.  Julio  de  Najera,  flitting  from 
woman  to  woman,  only  occasionally  piqued  by  a  more  de- 
termined resistance  than  he  is  wont  to  encounter;  Rosalia, 
Maria's  cousin,  wilful,  wily,  superficial,  unscrupulous; 
Ramon,  Crispin's  brother,  ever  scheming  for  new  acquisi- 
tions, ready  to  squander  his  money  upon  dancers  and  act- 
resses; Perrin,  the  employer,  in  whose  interest  even  Crispin 
consents  to  wink  at  wrong-doing.  Virtue  alone  is  victim- 
ized, by  itself  as  much  as  by  others;  it  becomes,  not  its  own 
reward,  but  its  own  hangman. 

This  is  not  all  of  life;  no  novel  can  hope  to  be.  Crispin 
is  not  all  of  virtue,  because  he  is  too  much  of  it.  He  forms, 
however,  a  notable  type  in  modem  fiction.  We  say  an 
Oblomov  when  we  refer  to  the  Russian  Hamlet,  prodigal 
in  words,  fruitful  in  genuine  intelligence,  yet  sterile  or 
abortive  in  deed;  we  think  of  Caesar  Moncada  (Pio  Baroja's 
Ccesar  or  Nothing)  as  the  opposite  type, — equally  sterile  in 
the  end,  yet  as  prodigal  in  busy-body  futilities  as  in  epi- 
grams; with  such  as  these  Crispin  Luz  belongs  as  the  repre- 
sentative of  victimized  virtue.  In  this  novel  of  Venezuelan 
life  the  author  has  epitomized  a  world, — a  world  filled 
with  Crispins  in  every  walk  of  life. 

And  what  of  Maria?  Is  she  any  the  less  a  victim  for 
not  being  possessed  of  her  husband's  docility?  In  om 
trait, — an  important  one, — she  resembles  him;  her  ]acV 
of  will.  And  one  may  question  whether  she  or  her  husbani' 
is  essentially  the  less  "moral"  of  the  two. 


RUFINO  BLANCO-FOMBONA  34"^ 

But  I  am  entering  a  province  wliich  doi-s  not  concfin  the 
author.  His  aim  was  to  present  a  slice  of  life,  not  to  sit 
in  judgment,  which  is  one  of  mankind's  most  ludicrous  pos- 
tures. In  tliis  novel  he  produeed  not  i)nly  a  notahle  piece 
of  fiction,  hut  a  notable  work  of  art,  untainted  hy  any  too 
evident  purpose  of  propaganda,  yet  illuminated  by  a  human 
glow  that  warms  tlie  heart  for  all  its  cynicism;  El  H ombre 
de  llicrro  attests  a  deep,  if  unoj»tentatioiis.  kiKuvledge  of 
human  passions  and  motives;  it  may  not  bring  hope,  hut  it 
brings  understanding. 

I  The  Man  of  Gold  was  begun  in  the  summer  of  1913  at 
Pomichet.  a  Breton  seashore  retreat;  after  an  interruption 
it  was  finished  at  Madrid  in  the  winter  of  1914-15.  "Per- 
haps." the  author  tells  us,  "it  is  up  to  the  present  moment 
my  best  book.  ...  Its  background  presents  a  picture 
which  those  will  recall  who  desire  to  study  the  political  and 
social  customs  of  Venezuela  during  tlie  epoch  of  Castro. 
There  are  many  portraits  from  life." 

The  Man  of  Gold,  however,  is  far  more;  it  is  just  as 
universal  in  application  as  its  predecessor.  Its  generating 
spirit  is  essentially  the  same,  only  it  presents  the  question 
from  a  different  angle.  In  the  preceding  novel  it  is  the  vir- 
tuous  man   who   succumbs   to   rascality   and   vice;    in   El 

I  Hombre  de  Oro  tlie  passive  saint  yields  to  the  active  sinner. 

I  Blanco-Fombona  himself,  commenting  upon  the  protagon- 
ists of  the  novels,  contrasts  tliem  thus:  "Tlie  first  lacks  the 
personal  elements  of  combat,  necessary  in  the  society  in 
which  he  dwells, — and  fails;   the  second  possesses  qual- 

I  ities  lacked  by  the  society  in  which  he  lives, — and  imposes 

?  his  will." 

We  first  meet  the  man  of  gold  as  a  rising  book-keeper, — 


346       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

Crispin's  own  profession.  But  Seiior  Irurtia  is  a  genuine, 
not  a  metaphorical,  man  of  iron.  His  one  passion  is  gain, 
and  to  this  he  subordinates  every  human  attribute.  He 
loans  money  at  exorbitant  interest;  he  cuts  down  his  per- 
sonal expenses  to  the  lowest  margin,  he  drives  the  hardest 
bargains  and  at  last  becomes  wealthy.  During  all  this 
time,  however,  he  has  been,  as  most  of  his  kind  must  be, 
anti-social  in  character.  His  fellow  man  existed  only  to  be 
exploited;  the  government  was  an  institution  to  be  de- 
frauded ;  woman, — the  only  woman  he  really  knew  was  his 
rheumatic  old  housekeeper  Tomasa,  whom  he  had  inherited 
along  with  other  domestic  articles. 

Yet  it  is  a  strange  group  of  women  that  is  destined  to 
affect  Irurtia's  career. 

The  three  old-maid  Agualonga  sisters,  a  religious,  high- 
minded  trio  whose  ancestry  contains  noble  as  well  as  revolu- 
tionary blood,  live  entirely  absorbed  in  their  niece:  Olga 
Emmerich,  an  eighteen-year-old  pampered  creature  whose 
thoughts  are  centered  only  upon  herself.  Ever  since  she 
was  left  on  their  hands  she  has  worked  her  will  upon  them; 
all  their  repressed  maternal  instincts  vent  themselves  upon 
her, — they  are,  indeed,  her  three  mothers.  Does  Olga  con- 
ceive a  violent  desire  for  an  Andres  Rata, — a  spineless, 
subservient,  fawning  creature  who  yields  to  her  every 
caprice?  They  may  object,  but  they  yield,  too.  Does  she 
need  money  to  settle  down  with?  They  will  sell  their  old 
mansion,  peopled  with  so  many  treasured  memories,  or  ex- 
change it  for  a  smaller  place  and  give  Olga  the  cash  re- 
ceived for  the  difference  in  value.  Thus  they  have  recourse 
to  Irurtia,  who  deals  in  real  estate. 

It  suddenly  enters  Olga's  head  that  this  Irurtia  would 


RUFINO  BLANCO-FOMHONA  :U7 

make  a  good  match  lor  Hosaura,  one  of  the  tlin-e  sisters, 
with  whom  lie  seems  somewliat  pleased.  But  this  thought 
is  hy  no  means  connected  with  any  concern  for  Rosaura's 
happiness.  Olga  is  thinking  of — Olga.  Old  Irurtia  in 
repulsive,  inwanlly  and  outwardly;  but  he  is  rich.  Should 
he  marry  Rosaura,  who  has  a  special  fondness  for  Olga, 
the  latter  will  have  access  to  much  more  money  tlian  that 
which  will  be  realized  by  an  exclumge  of  the  old  manse  for 
a  smaller  place.  To  accomplish  this  end  the  young 
Machiavelli  in  petticoats  sets  a  complicated  human  ma- 
chinery in  motion.  It  is  the  stor)'  of  Crispin  and  Maria 
over  again,  only  w  ith  more  malice,  more  cruelly.  Rosaura 
is  thrust  toward  the  old  miser, — made  to  feel  that  it  is  a 
necessary  sacrifice, — diat  it  would  be  selfish  of  her  to 
refuse.  Irurtia,  as  much  as  it  is  possible,  falls  in  love 
with  her  quite  genuinely,  but  she  cannot  countenance  him. 
Not  all  the  knavery  of  Olga,  of  the  ridiculous  ''General" 
Qiicharra,  of  the  rodent-like  Andres  Rata,  with  his  flatter- 
ing newspaper  roguery,  can  bring  about  the  union  out  of 
which  tlie  conspirators  hope  to  reap  profit  at  the  expense 
of  Rosaura's  misery.  Irurtia  himself  weighs  Rosaura  in 
the  balance  against  his  ounces  of  gold,  and  the  gold  wins. 
Besides,  this  man,  whose  entire  career  has  been  one  of 
parasitical  feeding  upon  society,  is  invited,  because  of  his 

,  riches,  to  a  post  in  tlie  President's  cabinet,  and  we  leave  him 
at  the  close  of  tlie  tale  undermining  the  very  office  of  the 
President. 

Like  tlie  previous  boojc,  this  one  is  etched  radier  than 
written.     The  vitriolic  characterization  of  Chicharra  and 

'  Rata  as  well  as  parts  of  Olga's  portrayal,  fail  of  effect  by 
the  very  excess  of  the  autlior's  passion.     W  ilhout  his  own 


348       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 


1 


testimony,  it  is  easy  to  detect  personal  animosity  against 
real  characters.  The  portions  dealing  with  local  politics 
are,  if  true  to  life,  a  terrible  condemnation  of  conditions  in 
Venezuela.  Yet  the  book  as  a  whole  suffers  little  by  the 
caricature  of  a  Chicharra.  In  every  sense  it  is  worthy 
of  the  volume  to  which  it  forms  a  spiritual  companion. 

If  one  or  two  of  the  characters  be  somewhat  overdra-wn, 
where,  on  the  other  hand,  is  it  possible  to  find  so  well  delin- 
eated, so  neatly  sketched,  yet  so  fully  vivified  a  trio  of 
women  as  the  three  Agualonga  sisters?  As  the  last  rem- 
nants of  an  old  family,  they  form  a  tragic  trio  that  stands 
out  in  luminous  contrast  against  the  self-seeking  creatures 
who  play  upon  tlieir  pride  and  their  good  nature.  Like 
Crispin,  they,  too,  are  the  victims  of  their  virtue.  For  Olga 
they  abandon  their  mansion,  for  Olga  they  abandon  their 
ideals,  and  in  the  end  are  left  to  face  old  age  without  even 
the  presence  of  the  scatter-brained,  self-willed  maiden  for 
whom  they  have  made  one  sacrifice  after  the  other.  It  is  the 
old  triumph  of  evil  over  good.  Cirilo  Matamoros,  the 
native  doctor  who  refuses  to  accept  money  for  his  sei-vices,  j 
lands  in  prison  as  a  reward  for  all  his  public  benefactions; 
Eufemia,  oldest  of  the  three  sisters,  dies  of  a  broken  heart  i 
caused  by  the  abandonment  of  the  family  home;  Rosaura, 
who  in  her  maiden  days  refused  a  man  she  really  loved,  be- 
cause he  would  not  take  Olga  to  live  with  them,  is  deserted 
at  last  by  that  Olga  who  tried  to  force  her  into  marriage 
with  the  abhorrent,  money-grubbing  Irurtia.  Irurtia,  on 
the  other  hand,  works  his  way  up  to  the  shadow  of  tlie 
presidential  chair;  Chicharra  acquires  new  power  in  the 
government;  Olga  satisfies  her  every  whim,  unmindful  alike* 
of  wifely  duty  or  human  consideration. 


-Ill: 


RIIFINO  BLANCO-KOMBONA  :W 

The  chapter  depicting  tlic  departure  of  llie  three  sisters 
rom  tlicir  ancestral  homes  is  one  of  the  most  affect iiig  in 
u)tleni  fiction.  It  n^veals,  as  do  similar  scenes  in  the 
receding  book,  a  RIanco-Fomhona  that,  one  hopes,  will  be 
iMie  in  evidence  in  his  future  works, — a  writc^r  who  is 
i.i.-ter  of  llie  deeper  human  emotions,  prober  into  the 
(■(•per  wells  of  feeling. 

/',/  Homhre  de  Ilirrro  and  Kl  Hoinbrc  do  Oro  are  a  net- 
tle couple;  they  contain,  largely,  the  author's  outlook  upon 
t(\ — a  life  by  no  means  devoid  of  what  have  been  called 
ic  fmer  things,  yet  in  which  evil  is  triumphant  more  often 
an  good.  In  such  a  sense,  if  we  must  use  names,  Blanco- 
3mbona  is  a  pessimist.      But  not  in  the  sense  that  includes 

resigned  acceptance  of  things,  for  Blanco-Fombona's  en- 

•  '  life  is  a  denial  of  such  resignation.     He  is  a  born 

jhter   against   the   evil   he   discerns,    and   by   that   very 

kiMi    in    a    certain    sense    an    optimist.     These    books 

not  mere  ''literature";  they  are  life, —  throbbing  life. 

they  are  not  all  of  life  it  is  because  Blanco-Fombona  is 
nt  all  humanity,  any  more  than  are  you  and  I.  No 
'  '\iter  tribute  can  be  paid  to  his  novels — and  the  statement 
lies  to  his  work  as  a  whole,  except  where  he  vents  those 
!  rely  personal  grudges  that  other  writers  repress  so  far 
:  letters  are  concerned — than  to  say  that  while  we  read 
I  in  we  accept  his  world,  his  creatures,  his  attitude,  and 
1  (•  through  the  scenes  under  the  spell  of  his  word.  There 
i  .1  great  novelist  in  Blanco-Fombona, — a  greater  novelist, 
1  iclieve,  tlian  poet  or  even  critic.  His  two  works  estab- 
]  h  his  position  firmly. 

It  is  La  Ldmpara  de  Aladino,  1915  (Aladdin's  Lamp) 
tit  contains  the  quintessence  of  the  author's  rich  personal- 


350       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

ity.  His  diabolic  spirit,  in  all  its  acrimony  is  here;  his 
mundane  curiosity,  raised  to  a  creative  power,  is  here;  the 
book, — one  of  the  most  curious  of  literary  collections, — 
is  the  man  in  all  his  aspects.  Though  it  is  composed  of 
bits  written  at  various  times  and  with  not  a  thought  of 
later  assembling,  it  is  strangely  revelatory  of  the  complex 
author  behind  the  pen.  Here  is  Blanco-Fombona  the  critic, 
the  fiction  writer,  the  poet,  the  sociologist,  the  polemist, — 1(1 
the  multiple  man. 

Why  "Aladdin's  Lamp"? 

Because  whenever  you  choose  to  rub  it,  the  jinni  appears, 
And  because,  like  Aladdin,  we  may  turn  the  page  instead  ol 
rubbing  lamps,  and  at  each  page  find  a  new  spirit  awaitint 
us.     But  let  the  audior  interpret  himself: 

"Aladdin,   capricious   Aladdin,   rubs   his   magic   lamp 
The  jinni  appears.     Aladdin  desires  festive  garb.     Th' 
spirit  accedes,  and  Aladdin,  the  orphan  of  a  botching  tailoi 
the  son  of  an  indigent  widow,  shines  resplendent  like  ,, 
lord.     He  rubs  his  magic  lamp  again.     The  jinni  appear] 
submissively.     Aladdin  asks  a  palace.     And  the  most  opt, 
lent  castle  is  his.     The  ambitious  youtli  rubs  once  moni 
The  spirit  asks  him:     'What  do  you  desire?'     The  amb 
tious  youth  desires  to  behold  the  Sultan's  daughter  in  h 
arms,  languishing  for  love,  and  by  virtue  of  die  jinni 
sultan's  daughter  languishes  for  love  in  his  arms.     Bil 
Aladdin  is  insatiable.     He  desires  more,  ever  more,  an 
more  slill. 

"  'Unhappy  one,  your  desire  will  slay  you,'  warns  tl 
spirit.     'Your  present  desire  spells  death;  if  I  should  Sc| 
isfy  it,  you  would  die.' 


RUFINO  BLANCO-FOMBONA  351 

"Wo  are  all,  at  limes,  are  we  not,  the  covetous  son  of  ihr 
tailor?      We  all  luive  our  Alacldiirs  lamps. 

"But  not  always  does  famishing  Desire,   Insatiahility, 
rul)  it. 

"At  times,  more  frequently,  Akuldin's  lamp  is  Ima«z;ina- 
tion,  of  which  we  do  not  ask  all  because  its  gifts  please  only 
chimerical,  unbalanced  men,  without  any  practical  sj)irit, 
whom  we  call  poets.  As  we  rub  the  magic  instrument  the 
miracle  occurs,  and  out  of  the  clouds  come  women  we  love, 
landscapes  gazed  upon  by  our  eyes,  peoples  that  opened 
iheir  doors  to  our  curiosity.  .  .  .  Do  you  understand  now 
how  evocation  of  past  life — memories,  travels,  emotions, 
I    readings — may  be  christened  with  an  Oriental  title?" 

Accordingly  the  strange  collection  is  divided  into  (1) 

Names,  (2)  Thoughts  and  Emotions,  (3)  Cities  and  Pano- 

!    ramas,  (1)  Italy,  (5)  The  Trip  to  the  Upper  Orinoco,  190S, 

(6)  Commentaries,  (7)  Confessions.     Let  us  rub  tlie  lamp 

a  few  times  and  sample  the  jinni's  compliance. 

Such  an  array  of  names  as  files  by  our  eyes  in  the  open- 
'    iiig  section!      And  despite  tlie  brevity  of  his  treatment,  the 
author  unfailingly  presents  us  with  a  thought  that  lingers. 
There  is  a  rich  vein  of  imaginative  humor,  now  gay,  now 
•    punning,  now  ironic,  now  swashbuckling,  but  never  dull, 
'    With   equal  grace  he  flits  from  Maeterlinck  to  Loti,   to 
:   Wilde,  to  Lamartine,  to  Isadora  Duncan,  to  Anatole  France 
and  whom  not  else,  in  a  half  dozen  literatures,  with  a  re- 
freshingly international  outlook.     For,  despite  the  intense 
I   patriotism  he  can  feel  aixl  the  intense  national  hatred  that  is 
i   the  outgrowtli  of  that  patriotism,  Blanco-Fombona  is  very 
much  of  an  internationalist.  _ 


352       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

Discussing  Maeterlinck  he  can  throw  off  the  observation 
that  France  has  never  produced  a  single  really  great  drama 
because  it  does  not  love  exaggeration  even  in  passion.  "I 
am  surprised  that  nobody  should  have  observed  this  before. 
Shakespeare  could  not  have  been  bom  in  France."  In 
similar  fashion  he  predicts  (tliis  was  before  the  war,  which 
has  now  delayed  the  fulfillment  of  his  prophecy)  a  theatre 
that  will  be  the  glory  of  Russia  and  the  envy  and  despair 
of  other  nations.  So,  too,  referring  to  Oscar  Wilde,  he 
cannot  resist  a  slap  at  the  British  pharisaic,  "holier-than- 
thou"  attitude  and  at  literary  sanctimoniousness.  "Grief 
converted  Wilde  in  his  last  days,  to  Christianity,  without 
such  Christianity  having  anything  to  do  with  sects,  Protest- 
ant or  otherwise.  The  author  of  De  Profundis  was  the 
last  Christian."  Speaking  of  Isadora  Duncan  he  is  led  to 
his  rarely  forgotten  topic, — the  United  States.  "The 
United  States,  which  still  lack  a  national  music  and  poetry, 
likewise  lack  a  typical  dance.  (The  cake-walk  is  not  Yan- 
kee, it  is  negro.)"  Like  Rodo,  he  considers  the  will  our 
great  virtue.  From  a  consideration  of  Gogol's  sparkling 
comedy  Revizor  he  arrives  at  a  definition  of  genius:  "con- 
verting the  small  things  of  every  day  into  the  great  things 
of  all  the  centuries." 

I  shall  not  make  a  minute  analysis  of  his  Names;  it  is 
sufficient  to  indicate  that  the  man  is  peculiarly  alive  to  every 
impulse  of  art  and  science;  one  need  not  agree  with  all  he 
says  to  admire  his  many-faced  curiosity, — a  curiosity  that, 
as  I  have  said,  is  creative.  This  is  no  merely  superficial 
versatility;  it  is  the  full  utilization  of  the  full  man  that, 
as  we  have  learned  from  Rodo,  we  all  carry  within  us.  It| 
is  literature  with  a  deep  root  in  contemporary  life;  it  is 


RUFINO  BLANCO-FOMBONA  353 

not  Dario's  lyric  contemporaiuMty  or  Chocano's  all  agra 
in  one;  it  is  a  passionate,  belligerent  contemporaneity  that 
is  strewn  with  the  errors  that  accompany  mairs  striving. 
It  is  representative  of  a  type  of  iniml  that  we  lack  in  our 
own  nation. 

Pensares  r  Sentires  (Tlioughts  and  Emotions)  is  no  less 
suggestive.  IiuKvd.  Blanco-Fombona  cannot  write  detach- 
edlv.  "The  whole  man  thinks,"  said  Lewes  in  his  biog- 
raphy of  Goetlie;  when  Blanco-Fombona  works,  the  whole 
man  writes. 

In  his  cynical  moments  he  is  capable  of  a  bit  like  his 
*'best  definition  of  a  man," — "The  best  definition  of  a  man 
would  bo  this:  the  only  animal  who  can  laugh,  cry,  and  get 
drunk.  Perhaps  others  have  given  it  before.  As  I  have 
lived  in  England,  Germany,  Holland  and  the  United  Slates, 
I  find  it  a  gem."  At  other  times  his  cynicism  combines 
with  his  sociological  interest,  and  he  gazes  at  the  human 
panorama  from  an  elevation  of  mingled  scorn  and 
optimism: 

'"The  survival  of  the  fittest,"  he  declares,  in  his  Los 
Arboles  Sobre  el  Monte  (The  Trees  Upon  the  Mountain), 
*'is  a  natural  law  in  so  far  as  it  applies  to  all  of  nature.  But 
in  this  vile,  bourgeois  society  the  fittest  to  live  are  the  vilest. 
To  change  the  environment,  revolutionizing  it  widi  what- 
ever means  science  places  at  our  disposal,  is  to  prepare  a 
better  world,  whence  better  men  will  perforce  issue,  with- 
out any  other  equality  being  necessary  than  that  of  the  right 
to  eat  and  the  right  to  forge  ahead. 

■'The  serf  desired  to  become  a  citizen  and  succeeded. 
The  citizen  of  today  lacks  necessities  and  laughs  at  the  sin- 
ister situation  of  going  to  the  ballot  box  with  an  empty 


354       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

stomach.  The  modem  man  is  hungry.  The  great  revolu- 
tion of  the  future  is  the  revolution  for  bread.  And  when 
man  will  possess  bread  and  rights,  he  will  place  his  happi- 
ness in  something  else  and  will  strive  to  obtain  it.  This  is 
how  humanity  endures,  through  movements,  change  and 
interchange  of  ideals.  Stagnant  waters  produce  only  slime 
and  miasma. 

"When  the  people  desired  to  conquer  rights  it  flocked  to 
the  banners  of  a  Mirabeau  and  listened  to  the  great  voices 
of  the  philosophers.  Now  it  throngs  about  doctrines, — 
pregnant  with  the  future, — of  a  Karl  Marx;  and  always  the 
people  will  seek  a  guide  and  will  rally  around  some  guiding 
banner.  For,  despite  the  fact  that  personalities  are  nothing 
without  the  group,  the  Carlylean  conception  of  history  con- 
tains much  truth. 

"The  people  are  mountains,  but  the  great  trees  grow 
upon  them." 

His  views  of  democracy  is  the  aristodemocratic  view  of 
Rodo,  only  that  Blanco-Fombona  is  outspokenly  socialistic. 
At  times,  indeed,  his  cult  of  the  free  personality  leads  him 
to  what  many  would  shrink  from  as  anarchy. 

It  is  in  this  section  that  the  author  presents  in  succinct 
form  his  views  upon  Spanish  America's  contribution  to 
Castilian  literature.  First  of  all,  he  contends,  Spanish 
America  has  brought  a  revolutionary  fermentation;  then  a 
deep  love  of  nature,  a  more  vivid  feeling  for  landscape, 
the  mountain  coolness,  the  breath  of  pampas,  virgin  forests 
and  seas.  Too,  a  cult  of  form,  a  love  of  elegant  things,  a 
dynamic  prose,  and  verses  free  of  the  old,  pneumatic  elo- 
quence. Finally,  an  intense  aesthetic  emotion, — tenderness' 
and  sensualism  in  art.     "In  tliis  last  respect,  Manuel  Guti- 


RUFINO  BLANCO-FOMBONA  355 

errez  Najera,   for  example,  is  the  Castilian  poet  witliout 
predecessors.   .   .   .  One   of   tlie    most    pithy    and    dislml)- 

ling  of  contem[U)rary  ihinivers,  Don  Miguel  de  Unainuiio, 
has  truly  written:  *Our  tongue  speaks  things  to  us 
from  beyond  the  great  sea  that  it  never  spoke  here.'  " 

We  will  pause  long  enough  upon  the  Ciudades  y  Pana- 
Tonias  to  note  that  Blaneo-Fombona  is  no  mere  j)arlor  tour- 
ist. He  sees  beyond  tlie  lithographed  pamphlets  of  the 
traveling  agencies.  Commenting  upon  Mother  Spain  he 
returns  to  his  favorite  themes.  He  entertains  high  hopes 
for  a  genuine  renaissance  of  Hispanic  grandeur.  He  sees, 
too,  die  undoubted  influence  of  the  younger  Spanish- Amer- 
can  writers  upon  Spanish  literature,  especially  the  effect  of 
Dario,  Lugones,  Jose  Asuncion  Silva,  Herrera  Reissig,  and 
of  Ricardo  Palma,  die  venerable  Peruvian  scholar,  poet  and 
chronicler.  With  perspicacious  patience  he  indicates 
cases  of  almost  servile  imitation,  and  reproves  Spain  for 
its  neglect  of  the  Spanish-American  intellect,  not  to  speak 
of  its  envy  and  jealousy.  Yet  these  words,  so  easily  mis- 
understood, are  not  mere  acrimony  for  its  own  sake.  Un- 
denieath  them,  as  the  writer  himself  assures  us  in  a  note, 
lies  a  genuine  desire  for  a  mutual  understanding.  Blanco- 
Fombona  is  not  so  black  as  he  paints  himself  with  his 
caustic  habit  of  utterance. 

More  interesting  tlian  the  Italian  travels  is  the  exception- 
ally vivid  account  of  his  trip  to  assume  charge  of  his  guber- 
natorial duties  in  the  wilds  of  Venezuela.  The  tale  reads 
like  fiction,  with  a  background  as  exotic  as  it  is  picturesque. 
The  entire  expedition  had  somediing  of  the  Quixotic  about 

Mt.  Blanco-Fombona  tlie  roisterer  is  there,  becoming  drunk 
and  endangering  the  life  of  his  few  companions;  the  poet 


356       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

is  there,  too,  inspired  by  the  ambient  into  the  extemporiza- 
tion of  poetry, — into  Alexandrian  ecstasies — a  la  Chocano: 

Yo  tengo  el  alma  antiguo  de  los  conquistadores; 
Orinoco,  los  Andes.  .  .  . 

the  economist  is  there,  with  the  realization  that  here  may 
be  situated  the  future  centre  of  the  world's  commerce.  So 
is  the  sociologist.  What  is  the  first  thing  Blanco-Fombona 
does  in  his  official  capacity?  He  constitutes  the  Muncipal 
Council  amid  his  desert  territory;  he  founds  schools;  he 
studies  the  various  Indian  dialects  with  the  purpose  of  pub-" 
lishing  vocabularies  of  the  indigenous  tongues.  And  here 
we  come  upon  one  of  the  numerous  instances  of  the  fair- 
ness that  underlies  all  his  proud  extravagances, — a  fairness 
comparable  with  that  of  Blasco  Ibaiiez,  whose  social  ideas 
run  in  similar  channels.  Blanco-Fombona  at  once  sets 
about  to  protect  the  exploited  Indians;  as  a  reward  for  his 
civilizing  influences  he  is  made  the  target  of  assassination, 
which  he  escapes  by  his  own  right  arm.  The  governors 
of  the  province  have  rarely  enjoyed  great  ease.  Venancio 
Pulgar  was  slain;  Melendez  Carrasco  was  wounded;  Taveraj 
Acosta  was  put  to  flight;  Diaz,  whom  Blanco-Fombona  suc- 
ceeded, was  poisoned,  and  Blanco-Fombona's  o^vn  successor,! 
Maldonado,  was  shot  to  death.  While  correcting  the  proofs 
of  his  book  the  author  learned  that  the  new  governor.  Gen- 
eral Roberto  Pulido,  had  been  assassinated  togetlier  with! 
twenty-five  or  thirty  companions.  Is  it  any  wonder,  then, 
that  our  writer  inveighs  against  the  lawless  whites  of  the 
dangerous  territory?  He  finds  the  Indians,  on  the  whole. 
an  industrious  kind,  contrasting  most  favorably  with  tliei; 
riff^-rafl"  of  the  Caucasians  that  have  there  assembled  from? 


i  it 


RUFINO  BLANCO-FOMBONA  357 

all  the  corners  of  the  earth.  There  is  a  grim  humor  in  liis 
statement  that  despite  the  undoubted  existence  of  gold 
mines  in  tlie  East,  the  whites  fnvjuently  rob  from  one  an- 
other and  even  slay,  all  joining  in  the  plundering  and  the 
persecution  of  the  Indians.  The  author  while  (hfuiing 
man,  might  have  added  another  attribute:  the  sole  creature 
who  robs  his  fellow  in  plenitude,  impelled  by  desire  of  gain 
ratlier  than  hunger.  For  a  moment,  in  his  quasi-Chateau- 
briandian  exahation  of  the  Indian,  he  becomes  a  sort  of 
devil's  advocate.  "As  to  their  religious  beliefs,"  he  re- 
marks, "tlie  Indians  are  more  logical  than  other  peoples. 
They  give  feasts  to  the  Devil.  They  aver,  and  with  reason, 
that  since  die  Almighty  is  the  Supreme  Good,  He  is  incap- 
able of  wishing  evil  upon  His  creatures,  so  that  it  is  unnec- 
essarv'  to  present  Him  w^ith  adulation  or  feasts.  These 
they  reserve  for  the  Spirit  of  Evil,  who  must  be  maintained 
propitious.  .  .  ." 

The  Viaje  al  Alto  Orinoco  (1905)  is  a  moving,  novel- 
esque,  at  times  poetic  description  of  a  madcap,  if  patriotic, 
epoch  in  the  writer's  multifarious  career.  All  of  the  writer 
is  in  its  colorful  pages. 

The  Comentarios  are  often  words  turned  swords,  glisten- 
ing before  they  stab.  Ask  not  Blanco-Fombona  for  con- 
sistency; ask  of  him  the  self  of  the  moment.  Do  you 
imagine  that  his  anti-United  States  utterances  are  the 
product  of  a  blind,  unreasoning  hatred?  Then  read  what 
he  can  say  of  all  Europe  and  its  hypocritical  cant  about 
civilization  when  the  purpose  of  diplomats  is  to  be  effected 
{La  Justicia  Inmanente,  page  398) ;  read  what  he  can  say  of 
France,  the  nation  he  adores,  in  his  article  upon  Xeno- 
phobia (page  431) ;  the  trutli  is  that,  williout  fear  he  attacks 


358       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

evil  wherever  he  sees  it.  His  sight  may  often  err,  but 
rarely  his  aim  or  his  sincerity.  In  this  connection,  easily 
one  of  the  finest  of  the  Comentarios  is  his  virile  attack  upon 
F rasas  Hechas  (Stock  Phrases).  "Sound  Germany," 
"Tranquil  Holland,"  "The  Model  Republic,"  "Spanish 
Indolence"  and  "Mad  France"  rouse  his  ire.  Is  it  not  be- 
cause at  bottom,  these  stock  phrases  represent,  as  do  most, 
a  crystallization  of  thought  that  is  the  enemy  of  fluid  opin- 
ion and  that  deeper  knowledge  without  which  no  lasting 
national  friendship  may  be  effected? 

Confesiones  presents  a  difference  only  of  degree;  almost 
everything  that  has  come  from  the  autlior's  pen  is  in  one 
way  or  another  a  confession.  The  writer  may,  at  times, 
achieve  a  certain  Parnassianism  of  form;  essentially,  how- 
ever, he  is  personal, — one  might  almost  say,  at  the  risk  of 
adding  to  the  intricate  mesh  of  terminology,  that  he  is  es- 
sentially projective.  Yet  he  is  such  a  master  of  word  and 
style  that  we  are  very  apt  to  be  carried  along  in  the  current 
of  his  thought. 

It  is  number  XV  of  the  Confessions  that  contains  the 
probable  keynote  to  Blanco-Fombona's  personality  as  it  is 
revealed  in  his  literature.  "There  comes  from  Colombia  a 
letter  that  produces  a  powerful  impression  upon  us,"  he 
writes,  "in  that  it  recalls  the  hours  of  anguish  spent  in  tor- 
ture in  the  prison  of  Caracas  (1909-1910).  And  I  who, 
illumined  by  a  ray  of  love,  tliought  myself  five  hundred 
years  away  from  that  darkness  of  yesterday!  But  no. 
My  heart  cannot  forget.  That  unmerited  and  protracted 
grief,  that  violent  and  hate-blinded  persecution,  this  exile 
that  cuts  my  life  in  two,  all  this  drama  of  barbarocracy  let  j 


RUFINO  BLANCO-FOMBONA  359 

loose  against  nie,  lias  darkoiiod  my  rharactrr,  poisoiicil  mv 
SI '11 1.    .    .    . 

Here,  then,  is  one  oi  tlie  sourees  of  a  virulence  that  dis- 

tiirhs  many  a  page  of  our  author, — that  renders  him  un- 

wiltinglv    unjust, — that    alienates    the    reader    who    seeks 

merely  tlie  amenities  of  "polite"  literature.     Some  may 

wish  it  absent,  but  that  is  to  wish  Blaneo-Fombona  to  he 

I  somebody  else.     We  must  accept  him  for  what  he  is,  a  thor- 

(  oughly  human,  sincere,  passionate  fighter  in  causes  that  he 

I  deems  just. 

j  From  the  same  letter  (sent  by  Satiirio  Gonzalez)  we  ob- 
i  tain  an  interesting  glimpse  of  that  prison  life  which  Blanco- 
i  Fombona  has  sung  in  his  poems.  There  was  many  a  sleep- 
I  less  night,  in  which  the  noted  author  read  manuscripts  of 
!  his  own  which  were  later  confiscated  and  lost  for  good, 
I    including  a  diary  of  his  imprisonment. 

The  book  concludes  with  a  history  of  the  author's  works. 
The  account  is  rich  in  anecdote,  in  humor,  in  self-analysis, 
in  literary  interest.  It  seems  organically  impossible  for 
Blanco-Fombona  to  be  dull.  Following  the  account  is  that 
short  obituary  note  with  which  I  opened  this  chapter, — a 
note  of  death  that  rings  with  life. 

It  is  too  early  to  attempt  a  definite  evaluation  of  Blanco- 
Fombona's  position  in  Spanish-American  literature.  He  is 
yet  a  young,  if  altered,  man.  Unless  future  events  should 
embroil  him  in  pure  polemics,  he  seems  destined  to  produce 
fiction  and  poetry  of  distinctive  and  lasting  wortli.  He  is 
a  man  of  the  new  age,  and  that  age  is  emerging  from  the 
;'  chaos  of  battle  and  international  misunderstanding. 


TRANSLATIONS 

The  poetry  quoted  in  the  text  and  not  made  clear  by  the  sur- 
rounding matter  is  here  translated  quite  literally.  The  citations 
are  indexed  under  the  author  in  whom  they  occur,  preceded  by 
the  first  line  of  the  original. 


MANUEL  GUTIERREZ  NAJERA 

No  soy  poeta,  etc. 

I  am  not  a  poet;  you  can  see  that.  In  vain  you  flatter  me 
with  such  a  title,  for  neither  is  the  nest  a  thrush  or  a  night- 
ingale, nor  is  the  piano  a  tenor  or  a  baritone! 

Por  que  es  preciso,  etc. 

Why  is  it  necessary  for  happiness  to  end?  Why  does  the 
sweetheart  remain  at  the  window,  and  to  the  note  which  says, 
"Till  tomorrow,"  why  does  the  heart  reply  "Who  knows?" 

Recorder  .  .  .  perdonar  .  ,  .  haber  amado.  .  .  . 

To  recall,  to  pardon,  to  have  loved,  to  have  been  for  a  mo- 
ment happy,  to  have  believed  .  .  .  and  then,  to  recline 
wearily  upon  the  snowy  shoulder  of  oblivion. 

El  templo  colosal,  etc. 

The  colossal  temple,  with  its  immense  nave,  is  dank  and 
dreary;  there  are  no  flowers  upon  the  altar;  all  is  dark,  so 
dark.  The  candles  are  extinguished !  Lord,  where  art  tliou? 
I  seek  thee  in  vain!  .  .  .  Wliere  art  thou.  0  Christ?  I  call 
thee  in  fear,  because  I  am  alone,  even  as  the  frightened  child 
calls  his  father!  .  .  .  And  there  is  nobody  at  the  altar!  No- 
body in  the  nave!  All  is  submerged  in  sepulchral  gloom! 
Speak!  Let  the  organ  sound!  Let  me  see  the  candles  bum 
upon  the  altar!  ...  I  am  drowning  in  the  darkness.  ...  I 
am  drowning!     Arise  from   the  dead,  oh   my  Lord!  " 

360 


TRANSLATIONS  361 

JOSE  \URTi 

Un  beso!  etc. 

"A  kiss." — "Wait." — That  clay  as  they  parted,  lliey  lovcM 
each  other.  "A  kiss!" — "Take  it!"  That  ilay  as  they 
parted,  they  wept. 

Entro  la  nina  en  el  basque. 

The  maiden  entered  tlie  forest  arm  in  arm  with  her  wooer, 
and  there  was  lieard  one  kiss,  and  another,  and  then  notliing 
more  was  heard.  She  was  in  the  woods  an  hour,  and 
emerged  without  her  lover.  There  was  heard  a  :pl^h;— a 
sigh,  and   then   nothing  more. 

JULIAN  DEL  CASAL 

Ver  otro  cielo,  otro  vionte. 

To  behold  another  sky.  a  different  mountain,  another  shore, 
another  horizon,  a  different  sea.  Other  peoples,  other  races, 
with  different  habits  of  thought. 

Ignea  columna  sigue  mi  peso  cierto! 

A  pillar  of  fire  follows  my  certain  steps!  A  redeeming 
faith  saves  my  soul!  I  know  that  beyond  the  waves  the 
haven  awaits  me!  I  know  that  after  the  night  will  rise  the 
dawn.  ...  If  we  had  lived  longer  together,  our  separation 
would  not  be  so  painful.  You  cultivate  your  ills,  and  I 
forget.     You  see  everything  black,  and  I  see  it  rose  color! 

JOSE  ASUNCION  SILVA 

Jnfancia,  valle  ameno. 

Childhood,  fair  valley  of  blessed  repose  and  coolness,  where 
the  ray  of  the  sun  that  scorches  the  rest  of  life  is  gentle. 
How  saintly  is  your  pure  innocence,  and  your  fleeting,  transi- 
tory joys;  how  sweet  it  is  in  hours  of  bitterness,  to  look  to 
the  past  and  evoke  your  memories! 


362       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

cuentos  mas  durables  que  las  convicciones 

Tales  more  enduring  than  the  convictions  of  solemn  sages 
and  sapient  schools,  and  who  surround  with  your  fictions  the 
gilded  cradles  of  our  great-grandmothers. 

campanas  planideras 

.  .  .  plangent  bells  that  speak  to  the  living  of  the  dead. 

Una  noche 

On  a  night,  on  a  night  permeated  with  murmurs,  perfumes 
and  the  music  of  wings;  on  a  night  in  which  the  fantastic 
glow-worms  gleamed  in  the  moist  and  mystical  shadows.  .  .  . 


SALVADOR  DIAZ  MIRON 


t 


No  intentes  convencerme  de  torpeza 

Attempt  not  to  convict  me  of  baseness  with  the  delirium  of 
your  madness!  My  reason  is  at  once  light  and  firmness, 
firmness  and  light,  like  the  rock  crystal!  Like  to  the  noc- 
turnal pilgrim,  my  immortal  hope  does  not  gaze  upon  the 
ground:  beholding  on  my  path  naught  but  shadow,  I  con- 
template only  the  splendor  of  the  heavens!  .  .  .  Erect  under 
all  blows,  in  my  persistence  I  feel  superior  to  victory.  I  have  \ 
faith  in  myself:  adversity  may  cheat  me  of  triumph,  but  not 
of  glory!  Let  the  abject  persecute  me!  I  desire  to  attract 
envy,  though  it  vanquish  me!  The  flower  to  which  the 
insects  swarm  is  rich  in  colors  and  in  perfume.  .  .  .  To  il-  il 
luminate  is  to  burn!  A  burning  inspiration  will  be  the'" 
flame  that  consumes  me!  .  .  .  The  pearl  blossoms  from  the 
wounded  mollusc,  and  Venus  is  born  of  the  bitter 
foam!  Conform,  then,  woman!  We  have  come  to  this  vale 
of  tears  that  overwhelms  us, — You,  like  the  dove,  for  the 
nest  and  I,  like  the  lion,  for  the  combat. 

En  mi  el  Cosmos  intima  senales. 

In  me  the  Cosmos  suggests  tokens  and  is  a  congeries  o^i 
mental  impressions.  .  .  .  For  me,  as  an  objective  spirit,^ 
everything  exists  as  I  behold  it.     And  the  nuance  lends  itsi 


t 


TRANSLATIONS  363 

own  lyric  element  to  the  gay  talent;  this  it  is  that  imparls 
character  and  tone,  novelty  and  worth  to  the  product. 

AMADO  NERVO 

Sois  rey,  etc. 

You  are  king  of  America,  still,  in  a  certain  manner,  even  as 
before.  King,  as  long  as  the  divine  tongue  of  Cervantes 
sweetens  the  lips  and  sings  in  the  songs  of  eighteen  republics 
and  fifty  millions  of  beings;  as  long  as  the  austere  ideal  of 
Castilian  honor  guides  our  souls  and  our  hands. 

ENRIQUE  GONZALEZ  MARTINEZ 

Busca  en  tod  as  las  cosas. 

Seek  in  all  things  a  soul  and  a  hidden  meaning;  limit  not 
yourself  to  mere  appearances;  scent  and  follow  the  trail  of 
the  secret  truth,  with  a  piercing  glance  and  a  sharj)  ear. 
Love  life's  tender  aspect, — the  calm  of  the  swaying  flower, 
color,  the  landscape;  gradually  you  will  learn  to  decipher 
their  language.  .  .  .  Oh,  divine  colloquy  of  things  and  the 
soul!  There  is  in  all  tlimgs  a  tender  smile,  an  inefl'able 
grief  or  a  sombre  mystery.  Do  you  know  whether  the  drops 
of  dew  are  tears?  Do  you  know  what  secrets  are  sung  by 
llie  zephyrs? 

RUBEN  DARIO 

Murio  tu  padre,  es  verdad  .  .  . 

Your  father  has  died,  it  is  true;  you  weep  for  him,  and  are 
right;  but  resign  yourself,  for  there  exists  an  eternity  where 
there  is  no  suffering  .  .  .  and  the  just  dwell  in  song  amid 
white  lilies  .  .  . 

Este  del  cabello  cano  .  .  . 

This  sage  with  hair  as  white  as  ermine,  merged  his  childhood 
candor- with  his  old  age's  experience.  \^lien  you  hold  sudi 
a  man's  book  in  your  hands,  each  expression  is  a  bee,  whi<  h, 
flying  from  the  paper,  leaves  its  honey  on  your  lips  and  its 
sting  in  your  heart. 


364      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

Decidme  si  he  de  alzar  voces  altivas. 

Say  whether  I  shall  raise  ray  voice  proudly  in  praise  of  the 
modern  spirit,  or  whether,  casting  these  times  into  oblivion, 
I  shall  give  myself  up  entirely  to  recollections.  .  .  . 
Today  the  bolt  of  Olympic  Jupiter  is  the  slave  of  Franklin 
and  of  Edison;  nothing  remains  of  the  glorious  thyrsus,  and 
vile  champagne  has  dethroned  Falernian  wine.  .  .  .  All  is 
over.  Tell  me,  sacred  muses,  how  shall  I  sing  in  these 
gloomy  days,  in  which  human  pride  attempts  to  cast  God 
out  of  heaven. 

Noble  ingenio:  la  luz  de  la  palahra  .  .  . 

Noble  spirit,  the  light  of  the  word  touches  the  soul  and  im- 
parts new  life  to  it,  revealing  to  it  unknown  wonders  in  the 
infinite  world  of  beings.  Eternity  appears  in  all  its  majesty, 
attracting  the  eager  spirit,  and  anxious  hope  grows  in  the 
human  bosom  at  the  distant  splendor  of  the  dawn.  You, 
inspired,  yearnful,  raise  your  brow  and,  with  the  diapason 
of  harmony,  wisely  follow  a  fruitful  course,  extending  the 
standard  of  the  language,  forming  the  flash  of  thought,  pro- 
ducing imiform  melodies  like  the  immortal  rhythm  of  the 
spheres. 

Eres  artista?     Te  afeo. 

Are  you  an  artist?     I  disfigure  you. 
Are  you  worthy?     I  criticise  you. 
I  abhor  you  if  you  are  rich 
and  if  you  are  poor  I  stone  you. 
And  pillaging  honor, 
and  wounding  everything  in  sight, 
it  appears  certain  that 
man  is  a  wolf  unto  man. 

Vivid  el  pobre  en  la  miseria. 

The  poor  man  dwelt  in  poverty, 

none  gave  ear  to  him  in  his  misfortune; 

when  he  asked  an  alms 

they  cast  him  from  the  house. 


TRANSLATIONS  365 

After  he  died  a  pauper 

they  rai^ed  a  statue  to  him.  .  .  . 

Long  live  the  dead,  for  tlicy  have  neither 

stomach  nor  jaws! 

No  quiero  el  vino  de  Naxos. 

I  ask  not  tlie  wine  of  Naxos,  nor  the  urn  of  those  beauties, 
nor  the  glass  in  which  Venus  woos  hamlsoinc  Ailoiiis.  I 
wish  to  drink  love  only  from  your  crimson  lips,  oh  beloved 
mine,  in  the  sweet  springtide. 

Fue  acaso  en  el  \orle  6  en  el  Mediodia?  .  .  . 

Was  it  perchance  in  the  North  or  in  the  South?  I  do  not 
know  the  day  nor  the  season,  but  I  know  that  Eulalia  still 
laughs,  and  her  golden  laughter  is  cruel  and  eternal! 

Amor,  en  fin,  que  todo  diga  y  cante. 

Let  love,  then,  say  and  sing  all:  let  love  enchant  and  fascinate 
the  serpent  with  diamond  eyes  that  is  coiled  about  the  tree 
of  life.  Love  me  thus,  fatal,  cosmopolitan,  universal,  vast, 
unique,  alone,  and  all;  mysterious  and  erudite:  love  me,  sea 
and  cloud,  crest  and  wave. 

No  es  demacrada  y  mustia.  .  .  . 

It  is  not  emaciated  and  withered,  nor  does  it  grasp  a  crooked 
scythe,  nor  does  it  wear  an  anguished  expression.  It  re- 
sembles Diana,  as  chaste  and  virgin  as  she;  in  its  coun- 
tenance there  is  the  grace  of  the  nubile  maid  and  on  its 
brow  a  garland  of  starry  roses.  In  its  left  hand  it  holds 
green,  triumphal  palms,  and  in  its  right,  a  vase  filled  with 
the  water  of  oblivion.  At  its  feet,  like  a  dog,  lies  a  love, 
asleep.  Amico.  The  gods  themselves  seek  the  sweet  peace 
Death  sheds.  Quiron.  The  grief  of  the  gods  is  their  inabil- 
ity to  die. 

Inclitas  razas  uberrimas,  sangre  de  Hispania  fecunda  .  .  . 
Glorious,  numerous  races,  blood  of  our  fertile  Hispania, 
Valiant  fraternal  spirits,  luminous  souls,  all  hail! 


366       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

Come  is  the  moment  long  yearned  for,  when  voices  aquiver 

with  gladness 
New  hymns  will  chant.     All  about  us  the  air  is  alive  with 

vast  portents, 
Magical  waves  of  life  surge  in  the  immanent  throes  of  new 

birth. 
Backward  oblivion  totters,  backward  flees  death  in  her  error; 
Heralds  proclaim  a  new  kingdom, — the  sybilline  dream  is 

fulfilled, 
And  here  in  the  box  of  Pandora,  whence  issued  so  many 

misfortunes, 
Suddenly  we  have  discovered,  smilingly  pure,  talismanic. 
As  our  divine  Vergil  might  say  it,  writing  his  verses  im- 
mortal. 
The  heavenly  queen  of  light, — Hope  that  descends  from  \h.( 

skies ! 

Mientras  el  mundo  aliente,  mientras  la  espira  gire  .  .  . 

Wliile  the  world  endures  and  the  sphere  rotates,  while  th< 
cordial  wave  nourishes  a  dream,  as  long  as  there  is  a  livi 
passion,  a  noble  task;  an  impossible  quest,  an  impossibl 
deed,  a  hidden  America  to  discover,  Spain  will  live! 

Jwentud,  divino  tesoro  ... 

Youth,  divine  treasure,  now  you  are  leaving  never  to  return 
When  I  desire  to  weep,  I  cannot,  and  at  times,  without  wisl: 
ing  to,  I  weep.  .  .  .  The  heavenly  tale  of  my  heart  has  bee 
plural.^ 

Y  para  mi.  Maestro,  tu  vasta  gloria  es  esa: 

To  me.  Master,  your  vast  glory  is  this:  you  loved  the  fleetin 
deeds   of  the  hour;    above   groping   science,   dense  histor 
you  loved  eternal  Poesy,  brighter  than  the  dawTi. 
Glory  to  you,  who,  driven  about  at  the  whim  of  destiny,  live 
to  the  clearest  and  most  beautiful  old  age;  your  enornioi 

1  See  the  translation  of  this  entire  poem  in  Eleven  Poems  of  Ruben  Dan 
G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  New  York,  1916. 


IK 


TRANSLATIONS  7,67 

catafalque  would  be  that  of  Victor  Hugo,  if  there  were  iti 
Buenos  Aires  an  Arch  of  the  Stars! 

Pluguiera  a  Dios  las  aquas,  antes  intactas  .  .  . 

Would  to  God  that  the  waters,  before  untouclied  by  man,  had 
never  rellected  the  white  sails;  that  the  astounded  stars  had 
never  witnessed  tlie  arrival  of  your  caravels  upon  these 
shores ! 

JOSE  SANTOS  CHOCANO 

Siempre  al  cantar  Victor  Hugo. 

Ever,  when  Victor  Hugo  sang,  Napoleon  Third  trembled. 

vano,  vano  sera  que  una  Dalila. 

in  vain,  in  vain,  will  it  be  for  a  Delilah  to  shear  my  poet's 
locks. 

yo  quiero  la  igualdad,  ya  que  la  suerte. 

I  ask  equality,  since  our  lot  is  the  same  at  the  beginning;  if 
we  are  all  equal  in  death,  let  us  all  be  equal  in  life. 

crucificddme,  y  hien?     jYo  hablo  al  presente? 

Crucify  me — Well?  Do  I  speak  to  the  present?  No;  I 
speak  to  the  future.  Sacred  equality  will  be  tlie  ideal  of  the 
future  race.  .  .  .  Oh,  Equality!  Brother,  have  you  not  seen 
the  sun,  shedding  its  rays  upon  all?  Thus,  too,  does  the 
God  of  Christ  illuminate;  therefore,  levelled  in  greatness, 
you  have  the  same  right  of  receiving  the  sun  on  your  fore- 
head, as  of  holding  God  in  your  bosom! 

Lee  mis  pobres  versos,  ya  que  el  yugo. 

Read  my  poor  verses,  since  I  wear  the  constant  yoke  of  love 
for  you;  devour  them  and  extract  all  their  sap,  for  the  great- 
est of  my  pleasures  is  to  see  them  die  like  those  flowers 
which  women  tear  apart  as  they  play  with  them. 

Traemos  desde  otros  mundos. 

We  bear  from  other  worlds,  like  recollections  of  former  days. 


368       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITEIL\TL  RE 

ineffable  sympathies,  deep-rooted  antipathies.  The  wrathful 
waves, — do  they  break  against  the  rock  for  the  mere  sake  of 
breaking?  Is  love  but  loving?  Where  is  the  point  of  de- 
parture of  our  life, — the  shore  or  the  sea? 

debe  de  ser  hermoso  y  eloquente. 

It  must  be  beautiful  and  eloquent  to  behold  entering  the 
heavens  anew,  a  Satan  redeemed  and  pardoned. 

Entonces  cante  amor. 

Then  I  sang  love.  I  rent  the  veils  of  the  profound  genesis. 
I  opened  my  book,  as  God  his  heavens,  and  beheld  my 
verses,  as  God  his  worlds. 

En  medio  de  la  noche,  en  que  camina.     (Note  to  La  Epopeya  del 
Motto.) 

Amid  the  night  in  which  the  world  journeys  toward  tomor- 
row's dawn,  each  hero,  crowning  each  ruin,  is  like  each  torch 
that  illumines  Nero's  nights.  Human  torch,  infernal  flame, 
divine  light! 

Cinco  veces. 

Five  times  greater,  at  last,  has  the  encamped  enemy  grown.  '| 
.  .  .  And  five  times  within  himself  grows  every  soldier. 

y  esa  mujer. 

And  that  woman,  her  flesh  rent  by  an  infamous  dagger,  with 
the  glance  of  a   glowing  sun  in  her  wavering  pupil;    that] 
woman,  sacrificed  upon  the  cannon, — is  the  image  of  the  dead  j 
Fatherland.  Hf^ii 

y  el  patTio  pabellon.  1 

and  the  nation's  flag,  stained  in  red,  when  the  glorious  pyrej 
shall  be  extinguished,  will  float  above  the  dying  embers  likej 
a  flame  become  a  banner ! 

porque  el  gran  Bolognesi. 

For  the  great  Bolognesi  was  the  sum  of  Agamemnon,  Nestor,! 


TRANSLATIONS  .-^6') 

Achilles.  Thus  the  American  incarnated  the  majcsiy  ,,f 
Atreus's  Agamemnon,  the  experience  of  Nestor  the  old,  and 
the  fearlessness  of  Peleus's  son. 

Si  America. 

If  America  conquered,  her  victory  was  a  source  of  maternal 
pride  to  Spain;  liie  tree  which  hegins  to  give  forth  fruits  of 
glory,  owes  it  to  the  stream  that  bathes  it. 

Como  en  el  mi  to. 

As  in  the  myth  in  which  sinewy  Hercules,  who  neither  in 
strength  nor  in  desire  equalled  the  rebellious  Bolivar.  .  .  . 

I  Ah!     Quien  sabe.  .  .  . 

Ah,  who  knows  whether  the  universe  is  onlv  an  organism, 
immovable  in  essence,  and  which,  although  from  appearance 
to  appearance  it  keeps  on  undergoing  transformation,  is 
ever  the  same, — and  who  knows  whether  God  is  not  its  con- 
sciousness. .  .  .  How  many  organisms  stir  in  a  drop  of  water, 
of  blood,  of  sweat,  of  tears!  How  much  greatness  floats 
in  littleness.  Oh,  Life,  how  much  is  your  immortal  reflec- 
tion multiplied,  which  in  each  drop  of  water  reverberates 
like  the  eucharist  of  the  mirror  which  in  a  thousand  frag- 
ments reflects  you  entire!  .  .  .  Within  each  life  diere  are  so 
many  lives!  Who  could  prevent  the  wave  from  changing 
into  other  waves?  The  sparks  from  a  flame  may  become 
fires  in  themselves;  each  corolla  is  a  forest  perhaps;  and 
thus  universal  life  is  one  complete  existence. 

Yo,  si  duda  mi  siglo. 

I,  if  my  century  doubts,  doubt  too.  I,  if  my  century  denies, 
likewise  deny.  But  not  in  vain  do  I  possess  liberty.  Let 
the  age  be  my  law,  but  not  my  tyrant. 

Suya  sera  mi  voluntad. 

To  it  will  belong  all  my  will,  my  reason,  my  ideal,  my  law, 
my  spirit.  But  let  me  at  least  be  able  to  say,  on  tlie  other 
hand,  "My  heart  is  my  own!" 


370       STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

I  Oh  murmullos! 

Oh,  murmurs  of  the  forest!  Oh,  sacred  voice  of  Nature! 
Oh,  deep  plaint  of  the  agonizing  beast!  No,  there  is  nothing 
that  more  swells  the  human  heart  than,  when  it  vibrates,  the 
harp  of  the  foliage,  attuned  to  the  ocean's  diapason.  .  .  . 
One  discovers  a  voice  that  enchants  him;  another,  a  voice 
that  recalls  a  song;  another,  a  voice  that  lulls  or  implores; 
yet  another,  w^ho  never  prayed  to  God,  hearing  such  solemn 
sounds,  falls  to  his  knees  and  prays! 

Pero  hay  en  ese  verso. 

But  there  is  in  this  vigorous,  terse  verse  a  blood  that  you 
will  scarcely  find  in  any  other, — a  blood  that,  when  it  cir- 
culates in  the  verse,  penetrates  like  light  and  undulates  like 
the  wave. 

Pero  su  hrazo. 

But  his  arm  is  made  for  lifting  the  trumpet  toward  there 
where  the  Prophet's  dawn  appears.  And  he  is  made  to  give 
to  the  winds  the  expression  of  the  terrible  trumpet  of  thought. 

y  guise  en  el  Museo. 

And  in  the  Museum,  thinking  of  my  mountains,  I  wished  to' 
belong  half  to  America  and  half  to  Spain. 

Ave  que  hoy  se  ahre. 

Bird  that  today  rends  its  bosom  in  the  numerous  cares  of  its 
love, — why  be  surprised,  if  it  is  to  still  the  hunger  of  your 
children?  You,  like  that  bird,  with  your  own  beak,  are 
rending  your  entrails  to  give  life  to  an  entire  world. 


La  Paz  fue. 

Peace  was  made.  The  decisive  triumph  of  the  yellow  Court! 
was  not  good  for  the  Republic  of  the  North,  nor  was  thel 
former  rule  of  the  Czars  over  such  eagerly-sought  lands  andl 
coveted  seas.  .  .  .  Thus,  in  the  making  of  peace,  the  Unitedj 
States  conquered, — and   with  sure  aim,  astute,   agile,   fore- 


TRANSLATIONS  371 

seeing,  they  trepanned  the  hinds,  cut  the  Andes,  united  two 
oeeans  and  felt  their  greatness. 

i  OHIO  rs  licmbra. 

Since  Life  is  a  female,  she  loves  the  strong  man;  and  yields 
to  his  embrace  because  she  rejoices  to  surrender  to  strent^lh. 
Will,  ancient  soul;  we  must  triumph!  Where  there  have 
been  laurels,  there  must  have  been  will-power. 

RUFINO  BLANCO-FOMBONA 

/  '  mejor  poema  cs  el  de  la  rida. 

The  best  poem  is  tliat  of  life;  the  lost  note  of  a  piano  in  the 
night;  the  wake  of  a  vessel;  the  flowery  road  that  leads  to 
unknown  cities;  childish  sorrows;  mornings  of  quarrel;  the 
taste  of  ungiven  kisses,  and  loveless  love. 

Me  abruma  el  calabozo. 

The  dungeon  crushes  me.  My  soul  is  crossed  by  dark 
thoughts.  My  poet's  wings,  as  they  open,  break  against  the 
four  walls.  In  a  tomb,  and  alive!  The  days  are  eternal, 
and  eternal  the  nights!  The  Griefs  keep  me  company. 
About  me  are  spies,  and  chains  upon  my  legs.  .  .  .  But  as  I 
close  my  eyes  (light,  fields,  sky)  I  feel  my  fetters  break; 
arm  in  arm  with  my  sweetlieart  in  the  garden  I  breathe  the 
scent  of  magnolias  and  verbenas.  ...  I  take  delight  in  the 
air,  the  clouds,  the  waters  of  the  pond,  as  refreshing  as  my 
beloved.  .  .  .  There  is  yet  something  good  that  the  Despot 
cannot  take  from  me  or  fetter. 

Locura?     Bien.     No  nve  resigno. 

Madness?  Very  well.  I  refuse  to  resign  myself.  Let  slaves 
do  that.  Let  Destiny  make  me  drink  hemlock,  and  Grief 
drive  its  nails  through  me.  ...  I  will  not  say;  "blessed  art 
Thou,  my  Lord,  Thy  will  be  done."     I  will  say,  "I  am  less 

'  than  the  insect  under  the  sole  of  a  shoe.  But  there  is  no  use 
in  gulping  down  my  tears,  nor  in  trying  to  make  a  pleasure 
of   my   misfortune,    or   to    look   upon   my   torture   with   an 


372      STUDIES  IN  SPANISH-AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

Olympic,  indifferent  expression.  For  in  this  P^Pf  *^'  / 
anTiere  is  the  capacity  for  suffering,  and  I,  the  dwarf 
possess  a  soul  and  can  weigh  injusUce  and  can  judge  the 
tyrant." 


THE   END 


INDEX 


Acosta,  356 

lit'  Alarcuii,  Juan  Ruiz.  17 

Alfonso  Xlll,  74,  118 

Alfonso  the  Learnoii,  220 

Amiel.  213 

Almeida-Garrelt,  234,  235 

Anacreon,  142 

Andueza,  311 

dAnnunzio,  1,  41,  74,  186,  243, 

Archer.  182 

Argolagos,  51 

Azorin,  190 


Bakounin,  250 

Balmaceda,  182 

(ie  Banville.  9 

liaralt.  138 

liarbagelata.  188,  189,  190 

Harbusse,  338 

Barillas,  110 

Haroja,  72,  344 

Ac  la  Barra,  110 

Baudelaire,  6,  9,  41,  52,  57,  63, 

141,  196 
Baxter,  163 

B.'cquer,  20,  70.  122,  138,  323 
l)ecu,  C.  A..  146 
Beethoven.  221 
Belgrano,  C.  V.,  116 
IVIlo,  Andres,  204,  231,  329 
Benavente,  72 
Benvenuto   (see  Cellini) 
Bergson.  168,  186,  225,  244 
Bilac,   Olavo,  x 
Bilbao.  231 
Bjoernsen,  1 
Blackwell,  x,  25,  29,  32,  80,  85, 

251 
Blanco-Fombona,  11,  48,  93,  193, 


20f).  207,  226,  2'16,  2'iS,  2%.  297. 

307-359 
Blasco  Ibiinez.  66,  356,  119.  266 
BlestGana.  Albt-rto,  339 
Blixen,  S.,  187.  22i! 
Boito,  221 
Bolivar.  98.  100,   108.  201.  201.  205. 

227,  228,  232.  297.  314,  318,  319. 
323  326,  331.  333,  33-V,  337 

Bomfin,  Manoel,  332 
Bossi,  E.,  206 
Brandos,  74 
Brown,  John,   124 
Buckle,  333 
Byron,  323 

Calderon,  49 

Cano,  127 

Campoamor,  20,  21,  50,  109,  111,  122. 

127 
Carducci,  41 
Carrillo,  A.  E..  299,  301 
Carlos   Gomez,  Juan,   227,  231,  233 
83,       Carlos  I,  17 

Carlyle,   202,   300 

Carrasco,  356 

Casal,   12,  34,  52-57,  58,   100,    111. 

133,  146,  256.  328 
Castelar,  21,  111,  113 
Castillo,  297 
de  Castro,  41 
Castro,  345 
Cejador  y  Frauca,  Julio,  8,   10,  52, 

71,  72 
Cellini,  67,  314,  318 
Cervantes,  49,  220 
Chaide,  Malon  de,  19 
165,       Qiaikovsky,  299 

Chekhov,  1 
196,       Chocano,   Jose    Santos,    11.    12,    18, 
373 


374 


INDEX 


64,  66,  67,  73,  74,  75,  136,  150, 
159,  160,  198,  207,  226,  246-295, 
297,  321,  329,  336,  353 

Chopin,  118 

Clemenceau,  336 

Cicero,  104 

Coester,  Alfred,  ix,  97 

Columbus,  175 

Comte,  265 

Contreras,  Rafael,  110 

Coppee,  6 

Cortes,  Heman,  17,  318 

Dante,  38,  220,  270 
Dario,  Ruben,  11,  12,  13,  15,  18,  21, 
23,  25,  41,  48,  51,  56,  57,  58,  64, 

65,  70,  72,  73,  75,  82,  108-183, 
184,  191,  198,  201,  205,  207,  246, 
248,  251,  272,  273,  277,  279,  280, 
283,  290,  294,  301,  304,  311,  312, 
313,  314,  318,  319,  320,  323,  328, 
329,  353,  355 

Dario  Sanchez,  Ruben,  112 

Darwin,  265 

Daudet,  338 

Dehmel,  4 

Delacroix,  266 

Diaz,  Eugenio,  339 

Diaz,  356  [Venezuelan  official] 

Diaz.   Leopoldo,   92,   314,   325,  326, 

328 
Diaz  Miron,  Salvador,  12,  18,  64-71, 

136,  137,  253,  318,  323 
Diaz    Rodriguez,    Manuel,    92,    316, 

339 
Dickens,  74 
Dufoo,  22 

Duncan,  Isidora,  351,  352 
Dunsany,  181 
Duplessis,  113 

Echegaray,  21,  271 

Edison,  265 

Eguren,  Jose  Maria,  296-306 

Emerson,  11.  202,  224,  214,  317 

Epictetus,  244 


Espinosa,  235,  237 
Espronceda,  94 
Estrada,  110 

de  Ferrar,  Cardinal,  314 

Finot,  330 

Flaubert,  137,  240 

Fombona,  E.,  309 

Ford,  J.  D.  M.,  X,  95,  202,  335 

Fort,  Paul,  119 

Foscolo,  318 

France,  A.,  41,  119,  351 

Fulton,  265 

Galdos,  190 

Gallegos,   93 

Gamboa,  F.,  112 

Garshin,  1 

Garcia,  Manuel,  103 

Garcia  Calderon,  Francisco,  92,  93, 

335 
Garcia  Calderon,  Ventura,  277,  295 
Garcia,  Godoy,  F.,  100 
Garcia  Gutierrez,  94 
Garcia  Moreno,  204 
Garibaldi,  232 
Gautier,  Judith,  52 
Gauthier,  Th.,  8,  23,  133,  137,  220 
Gavidia,   110,  127,   138 
Ghil,  8,  9,  11,  147 
Ghiraldo,  281 
Gibbon,  220 
Gilbert,  W.  S.,  28 
de  Gilbert,  127,  182 
Goethe,  4,  9,  111,  220,  244,  252,  353 
Gogol,  352 
Gomez,  J.  D.,  106 
Gomez  de  Avellaneda,  Gertrudis.  137 
Gomez  Carrillo.  E.,  251,  312,  313 
Gomez  Restrepo.  Antonio,  63,  64 
Gongora,  68,  137,  156 
Gonzalez   Blanco,  Andres,   124.   159, 

163,  167,  190.  260.  263.  277.  286, 

295,  311,  312,  314.  316.  329 
Gonzalez  Martinez.  Enrique,  18,  82- 

92,  100,  257,  269 


i 


delci 


INDEX 


375 


Gonzalez  Prada.   M..  253.  296,  297, 

;i29.  330 
GonzAlcz,  Saturio,  359 
Corki.  1 

i\e  Courmonl,  Jean,  10 
de  Gourmont.  Rcmy.  91.  99.  119.  147, 

326 
Goya.  282 
Groussar,   110 
Gutit'rrez.  J.  M..  227 
Gutierrez    Najcra,    Manuel.    12.    13. 

16-46.   \8.  51.  .52.  53.  57.  53.  59. 

60.  93.  100.  107.  129.  136,  154.  131, 

206,  256,  304,  328,  355 

Hardy.  3^10 

llartmann.  10 

Hauptmann.   I 

Hegel.  10.  265.  268 

Heine,  13.  70.  Ill,  127,  140.  323 

Henley,  4 

Henriquez  I'rena.  Max.  23.  111.  112, 
127.  137.  146,  201.  210 

Henriquez  L'refia.  Pedro.  160,  244 

Henr>.  Patrick.  248 

Heredia.  J.  M.  (Cubat,  13.  113,  295 

Heredia.  J.  M.  (France),  52.  83 

Hernandez  Miyares.  Ill 

Herrera  y  Reissig.  Julio,  92,  187,  355 

Herrick,  35 

Hidalgo,  326 

Hoijbes,  332 

HofTmann.  9 

Holmes.   Augusta,   147 

Homer,  270 
[Horace,  156 
iHostos,  330 

Houssaye,  142 

Hugo.  22,  44.  57,  65,  66,  110.  122. 
123,  124.  138,  140,  152,  169,  175, 
248,  250,  253,  266,  267,  270,  323 

Hume,  332 
, Humphrey,  G.  W.,  139 

Ibsen,  1.  41,  74,  147 
de  Icaza,  83,  269 


de  I'Isle  Adam,  338 
Ir%ing,  220 

Jackson.  Helen  Hunt.  49 

Jaimes  Freyre,  Ricardo.  92,  146,  271, 

281 
Jammes,  Francis,  83,  301 
Jimenez.  72 
Juarez,  327 

Kant,  10 
Kipling.  1 
Kline.  Burton,  x 
Korolenko,  1 
Krause,  265 

Lachambre.  Ill 

Lamarline.  83,  129.  351 

La  Rochefoucauld,  210 

de  Leon.  Luis,  244 

Leonardo  da  Vinci,  67,  220 

Lesseps.  265 

Lewes.  353 

Lewisohn.  4.  8 

de  Lisle,  6,  41,  136,  277 

Longfellow,  156 

Loti.  133,  351 

Lugones,  92,  118,  271,  323,  328 

Lulli,  148 

Lully,  R.,  118,  220 

Macaulay.  11.  202 
Machado  de  Assis.  J.  AL,  x 
Maeterlinck,  10,  170,  181,  300,  351. 

352 
Maldonado,  356 
Mallarme,  6,  8,  57,  301 
Marcus  Aurelius,  168,  213,  244 
Marden,  197 
Marmol.  Jose,  248,  339 
Marti,   12,  46-52,  68,  89.   110,   113, 

181,  192,  231,  246,  288,  318,  321 
Martinez  Sierra,  170 
Martinez  Vigil,  189 
Marx,  Karl,  354 
Maupassant,  63,  338,  343 
Mazzini,  232 


376 


INDEX 


Mencken.  99 

Mendelssohn,  299 

Mendes.  5,  136,  137 

Menendez,  111 

Menendez  y  Pelayo,  vii,  93,  111,  124 

Metternich,  232 

Mill,  J.  S.,  197 

Milton,  274 

Mirabeau,  354 

Mitre,  97,  98,  99,  100,  169 

Moliere,  221 

Montalvo,  124,  204,  231,  248 

Moratin,  104 

Morazan,  327 

Moreas,  62,  113,  323 

Mozart,  221 

Murillo.  Rosario,  112 

de  Musset,  21,  127,  323 

Nabuco,  98 

Napoleon  III,  6,  20 

Neno,  18,  25,  74,  75-81,  100,  267, 

271 
Netto,  Coelho,  x 
Nietzsche,   1,  41,  67,  74,  184,   196, 

215,  269 
Nordau,  53 
Novalis,  10 
Nuiiez  de  Arce,  111,  122,  318 


Ovid,  169 

Palma,  J.  J.,  136 

Palma,  Ricardo.  355 

Pardo  Bazan,  190 

Pasteur.  265  „   ,,^ 

Perez  Bonalde.  J.  A.,  13,  48,  113 

Perez  Petit,  187,  189 

Pestalozzi,  216 

Plato,  186,  244,  323 

Plautus,  221 

Plutarch,  244 

Poe,  13,  40,  61,  74,  83,  141.  196,  301 

Prescott,  213 

Pulgar,  356 

Pulido,  356 


Quevedo,  49,  156 
Quintana,  93 

Rambaud,  8,  11,  147 

Rameau,  148 

Ramirez,  104 

Reclus,  250 

de  Regnier,  4 

Reja,  72 

Renan,  41,  186 

Reyles,  187 

de  Ricard,  5 

Richepin,  52 

de  Rivas,  93 

Rodin,  266 

Rodo^U,  14,  48,  82,  92,  93,  139,  140, 

14iri50,  155,   184-245,  280,  317, 

329,  336,  352,  354 
Ronsard,  213 
Roosevelt,  157,  15^ 
Rousseau,  332 
Rossetti,  D.  G.,  1,  41,  148 
Rueda,  72,  146 
Ruskin,  244 

de  Saint  Victor,  137 

San  Juan  de  la  Cruz,  19 

San  Martin,  326.  328,  333 

Santa  Teresa,  19,  49 

Santos  Chocano  (See  Chocano) 

Samain.  83 

Sanchez.  Francesca,  112 

Sand.  118 

Sarmiento,  Pomingo  F.,  204,  231,  ooO 

Sarmiento.  Rosa,  104 

Sawa,  113 

Schopenhauer,  10,  269 

Sebonde,  244 

Seneca,  244 

Shakespeare,  199,  200,  214.  216.  221, 
305,  352 

Shaw,  180 

Shelley,  4 

Shepherd,  312 

Sierra,  26,  27,  93,  97,  155.  156,  189 


Silva,' 
355 
Sociatf 
SorJi' 
de  Sui 
Stepki 
SteveJii 
Snares, 
Sucr?. 


U 


INDEX 


377 


Silva,   12.  52,   53.  57-64.  305.  323. 

355 
Socrates,   U2.   185 
Sot  J  nana  Ines  de  la  Cruz,  17 
de  Stael.   104 
Slep!'tMist)n,  205 
Stevejjson,   1 
Suares.  63 

Sucr-.  297.  315,  326,  327 
"^    'crmann,  1 
.Surne,   1 

Tablada,  69 

ic.  im.  300,  333 

.-i    ;i,  74 

a^        .;    281.  335 

UP  .....  :«.  304.  305,  317,  355 

T  ,,!     r,  20,  67.  94 

If.  <  .  [•:.  F.,  114 

iirazui-u,  25 

tlcjr:..  n:i  ,  111,  129,  130,  139,  190 


Vallc-lnclan,  74,  190 

Vurpis  Vila.  25.  101.   117,  HI!,   120. 

191 
Vauvenargurs,  213 
Vi-Iasqucz,  282 
Veris.'iinio,  x.  9S,  99 
Verlaine,  6.  7.  8.  14,  15,  41,  52,  57, 

82,   83,    113.    142,    148,    152,   153, 

323 
Vicuna  Mackenna,  108 
Villaespesa,  68 
Villergas,  91 
Voltaire,  118,  332 

Wagner,  51.  147,  148,  221,  266 

Walsh,  1,50 

Washington.  202,  315 

Watteau.  102,  271 

Whitman,  1,  4,  49,  73,  74,  136,  137, 

169,  290,  295 
Wilde,  1,  116,  117,  179,  243,  351  J52 

Zaldumbide,  243,  244,  245 
Zenea.  137 
Zola,  271 
ZorriUa,   111,  122 
Zulen,  299 


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